49 - Theodore Roosevelt Typed Letter Signed as President on Religious Tolerance - Defending His Equal Treatment of Catholics and Protestants

Theodore Roosevelt Typed Letter Signed as President on Religious Tolerance - Defending His Equal Treatment of Catholics and Protestants TLS as president, one page, 7 x 8.75, White House letterhead, September 3, 1904. Marked “Personal,” a letter to William P. Reilly of The Sunday Democrat, in full: “Naturally, I am very much pleased by your support of me. I shall communicate with Chairman Cortelyou about it at once. By the way, I send you herewith two letters, not for publication, but because I want you to see that in my private action I do in very fact follow the course that you ascribe to me in your editorial. One letter I have just happened to come across in looking over some correspondence of mine while Police Commissioner; the other, as you will see, was written a few weeks ago to a well-meaning Protestant clergyman who took exception to my treating Cardinal Satolli with the same courtesy that I had already extended to visiting Methodists and Lutherans, and that I shall extend to the visiting Archbishop of Canterbury.” Roosevelt underlines three words and crosses out another in his own hand. In fine condition, with light scattered soiling. Roosevelt's reception of Cardinal Francesco Satolli drew objections from Protestant clergy in 1904, prompting the president to defend what he regarded as a consistent policy of religious evenhandedness. On August 1st, he wrote directly to Presbyterian minister John B. Worrall, defending his reception of Satolli and stating that he did not discriminate among religious sects; he subsequently sent copies of that same letter to other supporters, including Eugene A. Philbin, John A. McCall, and T. St. John Gaffney, as evidence of his position. This letter to Reilly follows the identical pattern: Roosevelt forwards the Worrall letter, not for publication, but so that Reilly can see that his private conduct matches what Reilly had credited him with in his editorial. The reference to correspondence "while Police Commissioner" extends that record back roughly seven years before his presidency, to his tenure as a New York City police commissioner from 1895 to 1897. The letter's closing reference to the "visiting Archbishop of Canterbury" points to Randall Thomas Davidson, who traveled to the United States in 1904 and, during his tour, attended the Episcopal Church's General Convention in Boston. Written during Davidson's visit and before Roosevelt formally received him, the letter positions the Archbishop as the latest in a list of religious figures, Methodists, Lutherans, and a Roman Catholic cardinal among them, whom Roosevelt intended to treat with the same courtesy. Roosevelt sought to make precisely this argument publicly soon after: on October 4th, he asked Philbin to note in an editorial that he had received the Archbishop of Canterbury and visiting Methodist, Congregational, Presbyterian, and Lutheran ministers before receiving Satolli, offering it as proof against charges of religious prejudice. The Reilly letter thus captures Roosevelt privately assembling the same documentary case he would soon seek to make publicly.