ROOSEVELT THEODORE Group of 5 Typed Letters Signed as Presid

Sale 2502 - Lot 161

Price Realized: $ 3,380

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000

"I CANNOT GIVE A POSITION TO ANYONE SIMPLY BECAUSE HE IS A FRIEND" ROOSEVELT, THEODORE. Group of 5 Typed Letters Signed, as President, each to the family of his sister Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, some with holograph additions, on various topics, including the proper dispensation of government appointments, the health of Teddy [his nephew, Theodore Douglas Robinson], making arrangements to attend a funeral [his uncle James King Gracie?], inquiring about payments from the estate of his uncle Cornelius [Van Schaack Roosevelt], and mentioning the "peace business" [negotiation of the Treaty of Portsmouth]. Together 6 pages, 4to, White House stationery, most with integral blank; horizontal fold, scattered creasing. Washington or Oyster Bay, 1902-05

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To his brother-in-law Douglas Robinson, Jr., 15 January 1902: ". . . Now as to Joe Murray. . . . he . . . can have no idea of the number of friends who apply to me for positions, and in nine cases out of ten for positions that I cannot conscientiously give them. I cannot give a position to anyone simply because he is a friend and I would like to do him a good turn. . . ."
To his sister Corinne, 6 September 1905: ". . . [C]an't you come to lunch . . . ? Then I shall have a chance to see you and tell you the inside of the peace business. There was much that was worrying and harassing about it."
On September 5, 1905, the Treaty of Portsmouth was signed, which brought to a close the Russo-Japanese War. Roosevelt had been invited by the Japanese to mediate during the negotiations; he later won the Nobel Prize in recognition of his work as an arbitrator of the peace.