Photo of the Day

It is late evening on November 5, 1912.

Election Day.

Roosevelt rides with Kaiser Wilhelm II in Döberitz, Germany, 1910.

And Theodore Roosevelt, the former president, has lost his third-party bid to return to the White House.

Roosevelt marches in the London funeral procession for King Edward VII, May 20, 1910.

He has come in second to Woodrow Wilson, a man whom he will call “the most wretched creature we have had in the Presidential chair; and we have had some pretty weak sitters there.”

Woodrow Wilson, hatless, in the center.

So Roosevelt writes to his son, identifying the elements of the campaign which led to his loss.

Kermit Roosevelt in 1913, during the Amazon River trip he took with his father.

And it is striking.

These are the same forces which deprived Kamala Harris of a victory in 2024.

Left: A large Chicago crowd listens to Roosevelt speak. He is standing left, out of the frame. Right: Harris rally, Arizona, August 2024. [Jbash31 photo]

Dearest Kermit:

Well, we have gone down in a smashing defeat.

In one sense, of course, this is bad for my reputation, for it rather diminishes the sum of my achievement, which is the only heritage I leave you children.

After one has been a conqueror it is never pleasing to have a second installment of one’s career as leader of a lost cause.

On the other hand, I do most sincerely feel that there never was a cause so well worth fighting for as this cause of ours this year.

We have had the very finest people with us.

We have waged a battle for the highest ideals and we have waged it on the loftiest plane, as that from this standpoint there is nothing to be ashamed of.

I believe we have had with us the great majority of those among the plain people who have the finest ideals, the great majority of those who are really the best men and women of the country, whose sons one would find in the armies of the country if there were a great and sudden need.

We have had to fight the organized wealth of the country and the organized demagogy of the country, ...and…the great newspapers that are responsive to the money touch of Wall Street.

Every species of lie has been told about me, with minute circumstantiality, again, and again, and again, and each lie is continually repeated.

There is nothing from habitual drunkenness to habitual mendacity and ruthless ambition and desire to subvert the liberties of the country of which I have not been continually accused.

Unquestionably, a large number of men have finally grown to believe these lies.

I excited a perfect insanity of hatred among an immense number of people.

Roosevelt in Africa, 1909.

So I do not think it was in the cards to win.

*****************************

I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda

The letter has been edited for brevity.