Roosevelt, Theodore | His inaugural address, signed on the day of his inauguration

Roosevelt, Theodore

Inaugural Address of President Roosevelt March 4, 1905. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1905

Large 8vo (256 x 172 mm). Title-page, 12 pp. of type, signed (“Theodore Roosevelt | March 4^th, 1905”) at foot of the last page, blank leaves bound in following the text; very minor stray spots. Bound by Stikeman for Charles Scribner’s Sons in half blue morocco over blue cloth, spine with 2 raised bands and gilt-lettered, top edge gilt, blue endpapers; font pastedown with evidence of bookplate removal, very light rubbing at extremities.

A rare, large-paper copy signed by President Roosevelt on the day of his inauguration. Given that Roosevelt assumed the presidency following the assassination of William McKinley, there was no inaugural event for his first term; the inauguration at the beginning of his second term served as the occasion for this address. With great optimism, he discusses America’s advantages and responsibilities to the world:

“My fellow-citizens, no people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver of Good who has blessed us with the conditions which have enabled us to achieve so large a measure of well-being and of happiness. To us as a people it has been granted to lay the foundations of our national life in a new continent. We are the heirs of the ages, and yet we have had to pay few of the penalties which in old countries are exacted by the dead hand of a bygone civilization. … Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. We must show not only in our words, but in our deeds, that we are earnestly desirous of securing their good will by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights.”

Though in addition to this statement of friendship and mutual beneficence, Roosevelt firmly declares the United States’ resoluteness and self-determination: “While ever careful to refrain from wrongdoing others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace, but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to fear us, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression.”

Rare. We can trace no other copies of this volume offered at auction since 1921. The present copy was sold in 1997 by Walter R. Benjamin Autographs, who noted in a slip included here, “In cataloguing the large paper copy for the Roosevelt collection at Harvard, R.W.G. Vail described it as rare,” and further claimed the volume to be “Arguably one of the most extraordinary inaugural items ever on the market place.” Among the seven copies institutionally held, we can locate only one other signed by Roosevelt.

REFERENCE:

Not in the OCLC

PROVENANCE:

Doyle New York, Monday 24 November 2014, lot 435