President Theodore Roosevelt Declines To Write A Book From The White House: I Never Can Write Unless I Feel It Borne In On Me To Do So, And Of Course To Think Of Writing Even A Sentence For Such A Book At Present Would Be Impossible THEODORE ROOSEVELT

THEODORE ROOSEVELT (1858-1919). Roosevelt was the Twenty-Sixth President. ROGER LIVINGSTON SCAIFE (1875-1951). Scaife, an author, was the head of publicity at Houghton Mifflin and later at Harvard University Press.TLS. 1pg. March 13, 1907. Washington. A typed letter signed Theodore Roosevelt as President. The letter is on The White House letterhead and is addressed to Roger. L. Scaife at Houghton Mifflin: I have your letter of the 11th. I greatly like Dean Briggs book. It would, however, be out of the question for me even to think of writing such a book now. I never can write unless I feel it borne in on me to do so, and of course to think of writing even a sentence for such a book at present would be impossible. LeBaron Russell Briggs, a Dean at Harvard University, taught a young Franklin D. Roosevelt. At the time of this writing, Briggs was the second President of Radcliffe College. In 1904, as TR alluded to, Briggs authored The Transition from School to College. The letter has even toning to the letter and lightness around the edges from a previous framing. The Roosevelt autograph is dark and the President added two words in his handwriting. There is a horizontal mailing fold.