Mar 10, 2020 - Sale 2533

Sale 2533 - Lot 194

Price Realized: $ 406
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(PRESIDENTS--1916 CAMPAIGN.) Archive of Theodore Burton, candidate for the 1916 Republican nomination. 32 items (including 14 signed letters to Burton, 7 telegrams and letter transcripts, 9 typescript speeches and press releases, one newspaper offprint, and one clipping) in one folder, various sizes and conditions, many with dampstaining and moderate wear. Vp, January to December 1915

Additional Details

Theodore E. Burton (1851-1929) was a longtime Congressman from Ohio and a serious contender for the 1916 Republican presidential nomination. In a widely divided convention, he received 78 and 69 votes in the initial balloting (finishing 7th and 6th) before support coalesced around Charles Evans Hughes, who went on to lose to incumbent Democrat Woodrow Wilson. This small archive of his campaign correspondence and papers sheds light on the political campaigns of the period. His most regular correspondent was George McKinley McClellan (1868-1955), a Seattle-based lawyer who seems to have travelled across the country as Burton's unofficial campaign manager in late 1915, reporting on the latest developments from Iowa, Oregon, and elsewhere. The only other original letter is from Jonah Kalaniana'ole, Hawaiian delegate to Congress, expressing warmth for Burton personally but falling short of a formal endorsement. Typescript draft letters to Congressmen James B. Castle and William E. Borah are also included, as well as a packet of campaign speeches and biographies, some bearing original annotations.