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AP FALSELY REPORTSTHAT ROOSEVELT
NOMINATESTAFT FOR PRESIDENT
184
●
ROOSEVELT, THEODORE. Typed Letter Signed, to editor of the Philadelphia
North American
Edwin A. Van Valkenburg (“Dear Mr Van Valkenburg”), stating that the
Associate Press news service has fabricated his endorsement of Taft and suppressed other
news about him, noting that he does not object to the latter, but strenuously objects to the
former. 1
1
/
2
pages, 4to, “The Outlook” stationery, written on two sheets; small ink stain in
left margin of first page, minor creases at upper left corners, horizontal folds. (TFC)
NewYork, 14 June 1911
[2,000/3,000]
“
. . . [I]t was outrageous for the Associated Press to fake that statement that I had notified the
President that I favored his re-nomination in 1912. . . . [T]heWhite House emphatically denied that
they gave out the statement . . .
“
. . . I particularly do not desire any notoriety, and I have not the slightest quarrel with the Associate
Press for suppressing the news about me. On the contrary, I am glad. But I very seriously object to
their faking news, and attributing to me statements which I never made, and deeds which I never
did.”
WITH
—
Typed letter from Van Valkenburg to Roosevelt, retained carbon copy, explaining the circum-
stances surrounding the publication and retraction—in
The North American
—of an Associated
Press story in which Roosevelt is alleged to have endorsed the nomination of Taft. 5 pages, 4to. Np, 5
March 1911.
Although Roosevelt had encouraged Taft to run for president in 1908, the outlooks of the two men
increasingly diverged in subsequent years. When the Republican Party nominated Taft rather than
Roosevelt to be its presidential candidate in the 1912 election, Roosevelt left the Republicans to form
the Bull Moose Party.
Published in
Letters of Theodore Roosevelt
, ed. Morison, vol. 7.