Beschreibung:

ROOSEVELT, THEODORE Three page typed letter signed on Metropolitan stationery ("Office of Theodore Roosevelt)", extensively annotated in black ink by Roosevelt, dated April 25, 1917; Together with a second single page typed letter on the same stationery, with a single small annotation, dated May 18, 1917; A copy of the recipient's response offering himself as a volunteer for Roosevelt's regiments; A five-page stamped-signed circular letter pertaining to the Volunteer Forces controversy and Wilson's rejection; And a fair copy of the first TLS, incorporating Roosevelt's hand-written emendations, likely made by the recipient in 1917. Small rust-mark from clip at the head of the first, all generally in excellent condition, usual folds. In 1914, Theodore Roosevelt became an editor for the Metropolitan magazine for $25,000 a year, a post that he held until his death. With the outbreak of war in Europe, he wrote numerous essays deeply critical of Woodrow Wilson's early refusal to involve the United States in the hostilities (America finally declared War on the German Empire on April 6, 1917). The present letters were addressed to the financier and industrialist Otis Henderson Cutler, Chairman of the American Brake Shoe & Foundry Company. They concern Roosevelt's plan to raise four volunteer divisions to fight in France along with regular American troops (roughly along the lines of his "Rough Riders" in the Spanish-American war). He had been authorized by Congress to pursue this course. However, on May 19, 1917, Wilson wrote to Roosevelt refusing to permit these volunteer divisions to be deployed, at which point Roosevelt sent the circular letter enclosed in this correspondence to all who had already volunteered for military service. Cutler himself had inquired about volunteering ("I am wondering if you would have any chance in your division for an old dub like myself, about fifty years old and without previous military and technical training," he rather touchingly writes). Roosevelt's three-page April 25 letter to him concerns the introduction of universal military training, and includes much on plans for the volunteer force, with almost a hundred words added or emended in ink in Roosevelt's hand. Cutler had been attempting to raise troops in Rockland County, New York, and his enthusiasm for the cause had clearly endeared him to the ex-President, who was deeply concerned at what he felt was a national humiliation engendered by America's late entry into the war. This is a remarkable correspondence, exhibiting as it does the deep-felt antipathy between Roosevelt and Wilson (Roosevelt once referred to Wilson as a "damned Presbyterian hypocrite"), Roosevelt's hallmark militancy, and the enthusiasm of those who would have served under him. C