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Original Exhibition Caption: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg admired FDR and saw important parallels between him and President Lincoln. He wrote this supportive letter at a time when Roosevelt was facing growing criticism over his economic policies. Two years later, during the 1940 presidential campaign, Sandburg delivered a speech titled "What Lincoln Would Have Done," in which he concluded that Lincoln would have been a New Dealer.
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519767892
label
Letter, Carl Sandburg to Franklin Roosevelt
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doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
519767892
contentType
document
title
Letter, Carl Sandburg to Franklin Roosevelt
description
Original Exhibition Caption: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg admired FDR and saw important parallels between him and President Lincoln. He wrote this supportive letter at a time when Roosevelt was facing growing criticism over his economic policies. Two years later, during the 1940 presidential campaign, Sandburg delivered a speech titled "What Lincoln Would Have Done," in which he concluded that Lincoln would have been a New Dealer.
citationUrl
identifierLocal
AR 2025.1.57
collections
Papers as President, President's Personal File
President's Personal Files
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1
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yes
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no
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naId
519767892
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item
productionDates
day
21
logicalDate
1938-09-21
month
9
year
1938
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description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
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0
type
photo
mediaId
c0c0bb50ce8741df
ocrText
3
Harbert,Mich. Sept. 21, 38.
Dear Mr. President
MW
Shortly after Lincoln's assassination,
you may be interested to know, one J. W. Phelps wrote to
Senator Charles Summer that in his opinion it was Lincoln's
carelessness about his personal guards that resulted in the
assassin's success. That point is minor. But in connection
with it Phelps wrote of Lincoln:
"His goodness, benevolence, and magnanimity were
as much out of place at the head of a people so
truculently cunning as we are, as would be a human
head upon a snake's body."
Of course, as a verbal cartoon and metaphor it was not
true and correct, but for grand vehemence in the American
style, it has something surpassing Gen. William Tecumse h
Sherman five weeks later: "Washington is as corrupt as
Hell, made so by the looseness and extravagance of the
war. I will avoid it as a pest house."
So you see there have been other vehe-
ment times in this country.
Yours as always
Part Sandburg
Will Bill 4 before of
erus attached