May 05, 2016 - Sale 2413

Sale 2413 - Lot 188

Price Realized: $ 1,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
THE "BEATEN PARTY": "WE STAND UNFLINCHINGLY BY OUR PRINCIPLES" ROOSEVELT, THEODORE. Typed Letter Signed, with a few holograph corrections, to Edwin A. Van Valkenburg ("Dear Van"), outlining his strategy for the Progressive Party after the dismal results of the 1914 Congressional elections. 2 pages, 4to, personal stationery, written on two sheets; horizontal folds, faint edge toning, minor paper clip staining at upper left. (TFC) New York, 23 November 1914
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". . . [I]f the meeting is held, all that should be done should be an announcement that we stand unflinchingly by our principles and will never abandon them, that we stand for the entire Progressive platform and that events during the past two years have made it clear beyond possibility of doubt that the social and economic measures we have advocated are entirely right and that, for example, the only possible way of satisfactorily solving the tariff and trust questions will be the methods we have outlined and that . . . with the adoption of these methods should go the adoption of Women's Compensation and Child Labor laws.
"As a matter of fact, what we now say is of very small consequence. Immediately after an election is a poor time for the beaten party to expect to be listened to . . . . A year hence it may be that our words will carry great weight, and then we will be pointing out what has been done . . . . I personally like [George] Record and [Amos] Pinchot and I should treat them with all possible courtesy but I would also frankly say that in view of their attitude we are bound to feel that all they are anxious to do is to damage the Progressive party . . . . [Pinchot] says that we have lost by not being radical enough. As we have lost not to the Democrats but to Penrose and Barnes, this statement is equivalent to saying that people, because they thought we were not radical enough, turned and voted for . . . the ultra-conservatives and reactionaries everywhere. Such a statement is too nonsensical to discuss and we dignify Amos Pinchot needlessly by giving the slightest heed to his antics."
Published in Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Morison, vol. 7.