May 22, 2014 - Sale 2351

Sale 2351 - Lot 150

Price Realized: $ 4,864
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 7,000 - $ 10,000
QUOTING LINCOLN: "YOU COULD FOOL ALL OF THE PEOPLE PART OF THE TIME" ROOSEVELT, THEODORE. Typed Letter Signed, to Secretary of the Progressive Party National Committee Oscar King Davis, expressing disappointment in the 1914 congressional election results. 1 page, square 8vo, personal stationery; slight toning at edges, horizontal fold. New York, 14 November 1914
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"There is nothing that you can say about the voters at this particular election that is not justified. There is no conceivable iniquity they did not joyfully support. But don't forget that Lincoln's statement was merely that you could not fool all of the people all the time. He explicitly admitted that you could fool all of the people part of the time--and this is a portion of that part of the time!"
Roosevelt founded the "Bull Moose" or Progressive Party in 1912, splitting the Republican Party into those who rallied around him, and supporters of William H. Taft. After only limited success in 1912, the decline of the party was clear when, after the 1914 congressional elections, Progressives held just over 1% of House seats and none in the Senate.
The quotation here attributed to Lincoln by Roosevelt (also by Alexander K. McClure in his Lincoln's Yarns and Stories, 1901): "You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time."