Mar 19, 2015 - Sale 2376

Sale 2376 - Lot 129

Price Realized: $ 6,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
"THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DO BELIEVE IN THE MONROE DOCTRINE" ROOSEVELT, THEODORE. Two Typed Letters Signed, to Herbert de Haga Haig, on various personal and political topics. The first, complaining that he has been unable to go shooting, stating that the British are incapable of understanding things American including the importance of the Monroe Doctrine in relation to the 'Venezuela business' [Venezuela Crisis of 1895]. The second, as Governor, recounting some observations of the regiment he organized [the Rough Riders] and of Spaniards [during the Spanish-American War]. Together 4 pages, 4to, 'Police Department' or 'Executive Chamber' stationery, written on separate sheets; two punch holes in left margin of each page, horizontal fold. (TFC) New York, 6 January 1895; Albany, 30 March 1899
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1895: '. . . I envy you your shooting. I have not had a days outing this year; and have not had a gun in my hands . . . .
'I am rather in a quandary how to answer what you say of Cleveland and the Venezuela message. To be frank with you, your letter seems to me to show the fundamental incapacity of even an educated and travelled Englishman to understand America or what America means; Although no admirer of Cleveland I think he was essentially right in this Venezuela business, and I think the whole trouble came from Lord Salisbury's failing to understand that the bulk of the American people do believe in the Monroe Doctrine. . . .'
1899: '. . . I had a great regiment for a volunteer organization. Indeed its fighting record would have done credit to any raw organization. I have always believed that with proper leadership there were no better natural soldiers in the world than those hunters, cow punchers and miners of the west, and that if one paid attention to . . . discipline, it would be very easy to turn them into a body which could do excellent work in fighting.
'The Spaniards were a queer lot. They possessed no initiative, and yet they stood and fought with extraordinary courage when behind cover. . . . The fever was what laid us up, however.
'New York politics are too kaleidoscopic for a man to have much chance to keep on it, but I am having a good run for my money . . . .'