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Lot #144
Franklin D. Roosevelt

“A STATESMAN OUGHT TO BE DEAD AT LEAST TWO GENERATIONS”: Invoking the names of four White House predecessors a month after Black Tuesday, FDR refuses to put his name on a trust company

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Description

“A STATESMAN OUGHT TO BE DEAD AT LEAST TWO GENERATIONS”: Invoking the names of four White House predecessors a month after Black Tuesday, FDR refuses to put his name on a trust company

TLS, one page, 8 x 10.5, State of New York Executive Chamber letterhead, November 30, 1929. Roosevelt writes to his former law partner, Basil O’Connor, in New York. In full: “That is news to me about the Roosevelt Trust Company. I have taken the position all along that while it is perfectly right and proper to name Trust Companies, banks, insurance companies, hotels, and palaces of pleasure after George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, it is rubbing it in a bit when they take the names of families which are very much alive at the present day and that anyway a statesman ought to be dead at least two generations before public baths and speakeasies are named after him. I have accordingly written to Broderick to tell him that I have a personal objection to naming the trust company after any member of the Roosevelt family, even Theodore Roosevelt, Jr....” A touch of very subtle handling wear (paperclip impression to top edge), two punch holes to left edge, and clerical stamp at top right, otherwise fine, clean condition. Auction LOA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.

Auction Info

  • Auction Title:
  • Dates: #335 - Ended July 16, 2008