This Library of America volume collects 367 letters written by Theodore
Roosevelt between 1881 and 1919, as well as four of his most famous
speeches, creating a vivid portrait of the public career and the private
thoughts of an unparalleled man.
Addressed to his family, as well as a wide range of correspondents that
includes Jacob Riis, Florence Kelley, Rudyard Kipling, Georges
Clemenceau, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Hay, Owen Wister, Upton Sinclair,
Edwin Arlington Robinson, Alfred Thayer Mahan, Oliver Wendell Holmes,
and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Roosevelt's letters demonstrate the
astonishing range of his interests and deeds and reveal the personal
dimensions of one of our greatest statesmen.
Roosevelt describes climbing the Matterhorn, hunting grizzly bears and
cougars, reading Anna Karenina while pursuing thieves through the
Dakota wilderness, playing with his children, mediating the 1902
anthracite coal strike and the Russo-Japanese War, visiting Panama
during the digging of the canal, and being shot while running for
president in 1912. The letters records his expert knowledge of birds and
wildlife, his fascination with history and historical writing, his
changing views on race and the conflict between business and labor, his
concerns about declining birth rates and the corrupting influence of
luxury, his contempt for impractical reformers and pacifists, and his
disappointment and rage at the failings of William Howard Taft and
Woodrow Wilson. And, most poignantly, they reveal the pride and worry
Roosevelt felt when his sons went off to battle in World War I, and the
profound grief he experienced when his youngest child was killed.
Also included are four speeches: "The Strenuous Life," a defense of
American rule in the Philippines (1899); "National Duties," which
popularized the phrase "speak softly, and carry a big stick" (1901);
"Citizenship in a Republic," with its famous praise of "the man in the
arena" (1910); and "The New Nationalism," which signaled Roosevelt's
break with Taft's conservatism (1910).
LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization
founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by
publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most
significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than
300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in
length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are
printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
