ROOSEVELT THEODORE Typed Letter Signed to Judson Swift

Sale 2351 - Lot 149

Price Realized: $ 2,500

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

Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000

"NEVER MAKE ANY PROMISES . . . THAT WE ARE NOT READY TO CARRY OUT" ROOSEVELT, THEODORE. Typed Letter Signed, to Judson Swift, agreeing with his view concerning the Progressive Party platform, explaining that the platform must state only what the Party would earnestly attempt if granted power, and suggesting that some offer support to his own political opponents because they know that the latter do not intend to realize their campaign promises. With two holograph corrections. 1 page, 4to, "Outlook" stationery; remnants of prior mounting at 5 points along left edge recto, folds. New York, 10 July 1912

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". . . You are quite right about the platform. Each plank--and that includes the tariff plank as well--must state . . . no more than what we intend to carry out if we are able to. The one thing that I have always insisted upon is that we should never make any promises on the stump that we are not ready to carry out in practice as soon as we have the power. The reason that some of my opponents have been so bitter in their denunciation of me, is that they know that if I am returned to power, I will use every endeavor to carry out in practice what I have advocated in my speeches and addresses. Whereas, they know very well that they can support with safety our opponents, who make all kinds of impossible promises, without the slightest intention of ever trying to carry them out in practice."
In the 1912 presidential election, Roosevelt's Progressive Party ran on a platform that called for the establishment of an independent commission to regulate tariffs so that trade policy would be based in science rather than politics. Although Roosevelt lost the election and the Progressives continued to lose influence thereafter, Congress established the U.S. Tariff Commission in 1916, which became today's U.S. International Trade Commission.