![HARDING, Warren G. (1865-1923). Typed speech signed ("Warren G. Harding"), as President, 3 May 1921. 12 pages, small 4to, small lithographed photo of Roosevelt on initial page, signed by Harding at end. Slight smoke stain along right edge of signature page, not affecting signature. [With:] TLS from Harding's secretary, George B. Christian, Jr., to J. E. Boos, 3 May 1921, enclosing the speech.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2007/NYR/2007_NYR_01840_0123_000(020218).jpg?w=1)
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HARDING, Warren G. (1865-1923). Typed speech signed ("Warren G. Harding"), as President, 3 May 1921. 12 pages, small 4to, small lithographed photo of Roosevelt on initial page, signed by Harding at end. Slight smoke stain along right edge of signature page, not affecting signature. [With:] TLS from Harding's secretary, George B. Christian, Jr., to J. E. Boos, 3 May 1921, enclosing the speech.
A EULOGY FOR ROOSEVELT, WHOSE "GREATEST WORK...WAS HIS CRUSADE FOR A NEW ORDER OF THINGS..."
Harding's eloquent eulogy for Theodore Roosevelt, delivered while a Senator, at the memorial service for Roosevelt before a Joint Session of Congress on 9 February 1919; but signed as President, according to the accompanying letter from Presidential secretary George B. Christian, Jr. "I stood before the flag draped casket," Harding begins, "and yielded to conflicting emotions...There was a distinct conviction that the flag lost its bravest defender when Theodore Roosevelt passed from life to the eternal. A flaming spirit of American patriotism was gone. A great void had come and there was none to fill it....I believe Colonel Roosevelt to have been the most courageous American of all times. He not only believed, he proclaimed and acted." He recalls T. R.'s unrealized ambition to receive a Major General's commission and lead a regiment to France in 1917. "...I believe he rendered a greater service with voice and pen at home than was possible to perform with his sword in France. And somehow I am glad he remained a Colonel--nay, The Colonel." Harding reflects that "Perhaps his greatest work...was his crusade for a new order of things, a new conscience in the Republic...he cried out for governmental assertion of authority, lest government itself should be the governed." He notes T. R.'s "greatest blunder": his abandonment of the GOP for the Bull Moose ticket in 1912. In all, "Colonel Roosevelt was one of the eminent Americans of all times, and history will write him one of the most conspicuous figures in all American history."
A EULOGY FOR ROOSEVELT, WHOSE "GREATEST WORK...WAS HIS CRUSADE FOR A NEW ORDER OF THINGS..."
Harding's eloquent eulogy for Theodore Roosevelt, delivered while a Senator, at the memorial service for Roosevelt before a Joint Session of Congress on 9 February 1919; but signed as President, according to the accompanying letter from Presidential secretary George B. Christian, Jr. "I stood before the flag draped casket," Harding begins, "and yielded to conflicting emotions...There was a distinct conviction that the flag lost its bravest defender when Theodore Roosevelt passed from life to the eternal. A flaming spirit of American patriotism was gone. A great void had come and there was none to fill it....I believe Colonel Roosevelt to have been the most courageous American of all times. He not only believed, he proclaimed and acted." He recalls T. R.'s unrealized ambition to receive a Major General's commission and lead a regiment to France in 1917. "...I believe he rendered a greater service with voice and pen at home than was possible to perform with his sword in France. And somehow I am glad he remained a Colonel--nay, The Colonel." Harding reflects that "Perhaps his greatest work...was his crusade for a new order of things, a new conscience in the Republic...he cried out for governmental assertion of authority, lest government itself should be the governed." He notes T. R.'s "greatest blunder": his abandonment of the GOP for the Bull Moose ticket in 1912. In all, "Colonel Roosevelt was one of the eminent Americans of all times, and history will write him one of the most conspicuous figures in all American history."