January 5 Tuesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a three-paragraph letter (again on the Children’s Theatre letterhead) to an unidentified person, inviting to a course of lectures at the Lyceum Theatre [MTP: Cordelia and Tom Platt catalogs, Nov. 1993, Item 1F]. Note: like the Jan. 4 letter this and likely several others were sent out to promote “the dramatic instinct in education.”
Sam also wrote “an apparently unpublished letter” to an unidentified newspaper about an incident where Theodore Roosevelt had allegedly insulted a girl who tried to pass him on a bridle path. After a detailed account of the incident Sam wrote:
Have we ever had a President before of whom such a story could be told & find believers? Certainly not. It would be recognized as a foolish and extravagant invention, a magnificent lie; for we have never had a President before who was destitute of self-respect & of respect for his high office; we have had no President before who was not a gentleman; we have had no President before who was intended for a butcher, a time-keeper or a bully, & missed his mission by compulsion of circumstances over which he had no control [MTP: Chicago Book Auction catalogs, Nov. 19-20, 1935, No. 55, Item 131].
Sam also wrote to Elizabeth Wallace at Chicago University.
You have overwhelmed me, Dear Betsy. That poem does not seem like words—a march of words, with interrupting spaces between— it flows like organ-music, in blended strains, deep & rich & eloquent. And so moving! I can’t read it aloud, my voice breaks. It is noble, stately, beautiful! I can never thank you with words, but I can with my heart; & I do. / Affectionately / SLC [MTP].
Sam’s new guestbook:
Name Address Date Remarks
Mr. Paul Thompson New York Jan. 5 “
Taylor – – New York Jan. 5
Harry Windsor Dearborn for the Robert Fulton Monument wrote to advise Sam of the progress made on the monument and to confirm that it was acceptable for him to come see him on Thursday, as per Lyon [MTP].
Liberty National Bank per Henry S. Bartow wrote to Sam. “We have charged your account to-day $96.36, for amount paid to Messrs. Knauth, Nachod & Kuhne for draft of Miss Jean L. Clemens for Mks. 400, as per document enclosed” (in file) [MTP].
New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad per A.B. Smith replied to Sam’s of Dec. 28 about “informing the baggage room representatives at Grand Central Station of the fact that train No. 240 is now making flag stop at Redding” [MTP].
Public Schools Athletic League, Girls’ Branch per E. Tully, financial secretary wrote to solicit a donation from Clemens [MTP]. Note: “Ans. Jan 5 M.L.H.”
Joe Twichell wrote to Sam.
Dear Mark: / I am to be at pulpit duty at Yale University next Sunday. As that will take me part way to Redding I plan to proceed thither on Monday—if there is no reason why not with you— arriving, via South Norwalk, at 2.08 P.M. Harmony hopes and expects to come with me, and we both are glad to think of seeing you once more [MTP].
Clemens A.D. for this day is listed by MTP.