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Lot 133
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T. Roosevelt Fantastic Corrected MS On Boxing, One of His True Passions, With 21 Words In His Hand
T. Roosevelt Fantastic Corrected MS On Boxing, One of His True Passions, With 21 Words In His Hand
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Description:

Theodore Roosevelt
n.p., n.d.
T. Roosevelt Fantastic Corrected MS On Boxing, One of His True Passions, With 21 Words In His Hand
TM
A superb Roosevelt item, a portion of his autobiography with corrections in his hand and discussing one of his lifelong loves, the sport of boxing. N.p., n.d. In very good condition, with 21 words in Roosevelt's hand as well as style corrections, accomplished in pencil. 4pp. 8.5" x 10". Housed in a handsome custom clamshell case, clad in blue linen.

Our manuscript would come to comprise the first few paragraphs in Chapter II of Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography (first published by The Macmillan Company, 1913).

In full:

"…Having been a sickly boy, with no natural bodily prowess, and having lived much at home, I was at first quite unable to hold my own when thrown into contact with other boys of rougher antecedents. I was nervous and timid. Yet from reading of the other people I admired - ranging from the soldiers of Valley Forge and Morgan's riflemen to the heroes of my favorite stories - and from hearing of the feats performed by my Southern forefathers and kinsfolk, and from knowing my father, I felt great admiration for men who were fearless and who could hold their own in the world, and a great desire to be like them. Until I was about fourteen I let this desire take no more definite shape than day dreams.

Then an incident happened that did me real good. Having an attack of asthma I was sent off by myself to Moose Head Lake. On the stage coach ride thither I encountered a couple of other boys who were about my own age but very much more competent and also much more mischievous. I have not a doubt they were good hearted boys, but they found that I was a natural victim, and industriously proceeded to make life miserable for me. The worst feature was that when I finally tried to fight them I discovered that either one singly could not only handle me but with easy contempt but handle me so as not to hurt me much and yet to prevent my doing any damage whatever in return.

The experience taught me what probably no amount of good advice could have taught me. I made up my mind that I must try to learn so that I would not again be put in such a helpless position; and having become quickly and bitterly conscious that I did not have the natural prowess thus to hold my own I decided that I would try to supply its place by training. Accordingly with my father's hearty approval I started to learn to box. I was a painfully slow and awkward pupil, and certainly worked two or three years before I made any perceptible improvement whatever. My boxing master was John Long, an ex--prize fighter. I can see his rooms now, with colored pictures of the fights between Tom Hyer and Yankee Sullivan, and Heenan and Sayers, and other great events in the annals of the squared circle.

On one occasion, to excite interest among his patrons, he held a serious of 'championship' matches for the different weights, the prizes being, at least in my class, pewter mugs of a value I should suppose approximating fifty cents. Neither he or I had any idea that I could do anything but I was entered in the light weight contest, where it happened that I was pitted in succession against a couple of reedy striplings who were even worse than I was. Equally to their surprise and to my own, and to John Long's, I won, and the pewter mug became one of my most prized possessions. I kept it and alluded to it, and I fear bragged about it, for a number of years, and I only wish I knew where it is now. In Arthur Ruhl's volume of stories called 'A Break in Training', there is an account of the little man who once in a fifth rate handicap meeting won a worthless pewter medal and joyed in it ever after. Well, as soon as I read that story I felt that the little man and I were brothers.

This was, as far as I remember, the only one of my exceedingly rare athletic triumphs which would be worth relating. I did a good deal of boxing and wrestling in Harvard, but never attained the first rank in either even at my own weight. In a public boxing contest in the Harvard Gymnasium I got either into the finals or semi-finals, I forget which, but aside from this the chief part I played was to act as exercising partner for some friend or classmate who did have a chance of distinguishing himself in the championship contests.

I was fond of horseback riding, but I took to it slowly and with difficulty, exactly as with boxing. It was a long time before I became even a respectable rider, and I never got much higher. I mean by this that I never became a first flight man in the hunting field, and never even approached the bronco-busting class in the West. Any man if he chooses can gradually school himself to the requisite nerve and gradually learn the requisite seat and hands that will enable him to do respectably across country or perform the average work on a ranch. Of my ranch experiences I shall speak later. At intervals after leaving college I hunted on Long Island with the Meadow Brook hounds. Almost the only experience I ever had in this connection that was of any interest was on one occasion when I broke my arm. My purse did not permit me to own expensive horses. On this occasion I was riding a $300 house, a buggy horse originally, which its owner sold because now and then it insisted on thoughtfully lying down when in harness. It never did this under the saddle;..."

Roosevelt would extend his belief in the positive attributes of boxing into pushing forward public initiatives as well. As he explains later in Chapter II in his Autobiography: "I regard boxing, whether professional or amateur, as a first-class sport, and I do not regard it as brutalizing…Most certainly prize-fighting is not half as brutalizing or demoralizing as many forms of big business and of the legal work carried on in connection with big business. Powerful, vigorous men of strong animal development must have some way in which their animal spirits can find vent. When I was Police Commissioner I found (and Jacob Riis will back me up in this) that the establishment of a boxing club in a tough neighborhood always tended to do away with knifing and gun-fighting among the young fellows who would otherwise have been in murderous gangs. Many of these young fellows were not naturally criminals at all, but they had to have some outlet for their activities. In the same way I have always regarded boxing as a first-class sport to encourage in the Young Men's Christian Association. I do not like to see young Christians with shoulders that slope like a champagne bottle. Of course boxing should be encouraged in the army and navy…"

TR kept up his own fighting as well: "…When I was in the Legislature and was working very hard, with little chance of getting out of doors, all the exercise I got was boxing and wrestling. While President I used to box with some of the aides… I no more expected special consideration in politics than I would have expected it in the boxing ring…". He even became a student of Mike Donovan.

Ironically, Roosevelt lost sight in his left eye during a boxing match with his military aide, Col. Daniel T. Moore. Roosevelt stopped boxing after it, and the injury was kept secret for 10 years.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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  • Dimensions: 8.5" x 10.5"
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