Exceptional TLS, one page, 7.75 x 9.5, personal The Outlook letterhead, July 2, 1912. Roosevelt writes to Lady Gregory. In full: “I very much appreciate your letter, and am gratified with what Grey said. He expresses exactly my feelings. The important point is to fight on the right side; and yet we continually meet nice rather milk-and-water creatures, who are so shocked at fighting, that they utterly forget to consider whether the battle is for the right. I immensely appreciated your book—but of course that goes without saying. I have only a moment in which to write you. I am up to my ears in about as ugly a fight as I have ever been in; I think I should rather flatter myself if I spoke of the issue as doubtful; and yet in all my life I have never been in a fight where I was more certain as to my duty. I just could not have kept out. Remember me to your son—the owner of Patrick Sarsfield and Theodore Roosevelt!...” Dissatisfied with the performance of his hand-picked successor, William H. Taft, Roosevelt announced on February 21, 1912, that “his hat was in the ring” as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Failing to win enough party support at the convention in the following June, he ran as a Progressive and, in splitting the Republican vote with incumbent Taft, threw the election to Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt’s decision to go head-to-head against Taft embittered legions of Republicans and former loyalists and proved to be one of the most complex and contentious legacies of his political career. The Irish-born patron of the arts, political activist, historian, and playwright Lady Gregory (born 1852) was a trusted friend of Roosevelt’s. The New York Times reported on November 29, 1911, that on the previous night, Roosevelt and Lady Gregory had shared a box at a performance of The Playboy of the Western World staged on the previous evening by the Irish Players. In the following month, Roosevelt wrote for The Outlook an article titled “In the Eyes of Our Friends: The Irish Theatre,” in which he lavishly praised Lady Gregory’s contributions to the arts in Ireland. Also included is a secretarially signed TLS of thanks from Roosevelt to Lady Grey, dated October 19, 1912, written from Mercy Hospital in Chicago, where Roosevelt was recovering from the unsuccessful assassination attempt that had taken place in Milwaukee on October 14. In part: “I want you to know that I have really been campaigning with all my heart for as good a cause as ever was fought for. The shooting was only the natural and inevitable result of the kind of way that for a good many years now I have been assaulted....” Accompanied by the original mailing envelope for the first letter. A touch of very subtle soiling and handling wear, otherwise fine, clean, bright condition. Auction LOA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.
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