Funny Letters From Famous People

by Charles Osgood

  We have just captured six cows. What shall we do with them?

  George B. McClellan

  Lincoln immediately dispatched this reply:

  George B. McClellan

  Army of the Potomac

  As to the six cows captured—milk them.

  A. Lincoln

  Lincoln proffered this amusing letter of “recommendation” to his friend Judge Stephen T. Logan, in about 1850:

  My dear Judge,

  The bearer of this is a young man who thinks he can be a lawyer. Examine him if you want to. I have done so and am satisfied. He’s a good deal smarter than he looks to be.

  Here’s another letter of recommendation, written to Major George D. Ramsey:

  October 17, 1861

  My dear Sir:

  The lady of this says she has two sons who want to work. Set them at it if possible. Wanting to work is so rare a want that it should be encouraged.

  A. Lincoln

  In 1863, a woman wrote Lincoln requesting “a sentiment” along with his autograph. He replied:

  Dear Madam:

  When you ask from a stranger that which is of interest only to yourself, always enclose a stamp. There’s your sentiment, and here’s your autograph.

  A. Lincoln

  Ulysses S. Grant

  A MAN OF WAR who led the Union soldiers to fabled victory against Robert E. Lee and his rebels, our eighteenth president, Ulysses S. Grant, had a famously brusque, blunt style. Here’s how he described a battle during the Mexican War in 1847, eighteen years before his most famous victory in the Civil War:

  The Mexicans were giving way all along the line, and many of them, no doubt, left early. There seemed to be a few men in front and I charged upon them with my company. There was no resistance, and we captured a Mexican colonel, who had been wounded, and a few men. Just as I was sending them to the rear with a guard of two or three men, a private came from the front.… The ground had been charged over before. My exploit was equal to that of the soldier who boasted that he had cut off the leg of one of his enemy. When asked why he did not cut off his head, he replied, “Someone had done that before.”

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  IN 1842, Rutherford B. Hayes wrote his mother, a firm believer in temperance, about a cough he had. He told her that the doctors would hold out hope that his life would be prolonged by a dozen years, but only on certain conditions:

  Dear Mother—

  I will stop drinking, regulate my diet, keep out of the cold, and entirely refrain from laughing.

  Several years later, Hayes wrote his sister:

  I have had no loves as yet [but] uppermost in the medley of ideas that are rolling about under my hair is that before a year rolls around, I’ll get me a wifey, or at least a sweetheart, if I can find one who agrees with me that I am one of the sunniest fellows in the world.

  Benjamin Harrison

  MARGARET PELTZ was a close friend of Benjamin Harrison and his family, and in 1877 (eleven years before he was elected president), she sent him some fancy nightshirts. Harrison sent the following grateful note:

  Dear Margaret:

  … The garments were, I believe, intended for the Governor of Indiana [a tall, gangling man who earned the nickname “Blue Jeans” Williams], but they were too short for him and much too dainty, so I have taken the liberty of keeping them. Mrs. Harrison thought I would not wear ruffled and pleated robes de nuit and was surprised to see how kindly I took to the finery. Strange as it may seem, I have never had more unruffled sleep.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  EVER THE ARDENT NATURALIST, Theodore Roosevelt wrote the following to his friend and admirer John Burroughs, who wrote a number of nature books. The letter describes some difficulties in the lives of the bears in Yellowstone Park:

  Dear John:

  … I think that nothing is more amusing and interesting than the development of the changes made in wild beast character by the wholly unprecedented course of things in the Yellowstone Park. There are lots of tin cans in the garbage heaps which the bears muss over, and it has now become fairly common for a bear to get his paw so caught in a tin can that he cannot get it off, and of course great pain and injury follow. Buffalo Jones was sent with another scout to capture, tie up, and cure these bears. He roped two and got the can off one, but the other tore himself loose, can and all, and escaped, owing, as Jones bitterly insists, to the failure of duty on the part of one of his brother scouts, whom he sneers at as “a foreigner.” Think of the grizzly bear of the early Rocky Mountain hunters and explorers, and then think of the fact that part of the recognized duties of the scouts in the Yellowstone Park at this moment is to catch this same bear and remove tin cans from the bear’s paws in the bear’s interest!

  T.R.

  Roosevelt was truly one of America’s most fiercely independent presidents. In this letter to the Department of State, his escalating anger over some fairly minor problems is so vivid that it’s actually funny. By the end of it, one might be tempted to tweak Roosevelt by addressing him as “Your Royal Irritance.”

  Washington, December 2, 1908

  To the Department of State:

  I wish to find out from the Department why it permitted the Chinese Ambassador today twice to use the phrase “Your Excellency” in addressing the President. Not only law but wise custom and propriety demand that the President shall be addressed only as “Mr. President” or as “the President.” It is wholly improper to permit the use of a silly title like “Excellency” (and incidentally if titles were to be allowed at all, this title is entirely unworthy of the position of the President). Any title is silly when given the President. This title is rather unusually silly. But it is not only silly but inexcusable for the State Department, which ought, above all other Departments, to be correct in its usage, to permit foreign representatives to fall into the blunder of using this title. I would like an immediate explanation of why the blunder was permitted and a statement in detail as to what has been done by the Department to prevent the commission of any similar blunder in the future.

  Now, as to the address itself. I did not deliver it as handed me because it was fatuous and absurd. I have already had to correct the ridiculous telegram that was drafted for me to send to China on the occasion of the death of the Emperor and the Empress Dowager. I do not object to the utter fatuity of the ordinary addresses made to me by, and by me to, the representatives of foreign governments when they come to me to deliver their credentials or to say good-bye. The occasion is merely formal and the absurd speeches interchanged are simply rather elaborate ways of saying good morning and good-bye. It would of course be better if they were less absurd and if we had a regular form to be used by the Minister and by the President on all such occasions, the form permitting of the slight variations which would be necessary in any particular case. It seems to me that some such form could be devised, just as we use special forms in the absurd and fatuous letters I write to Emperors, Apostolic Kings, Presidents, and the like—those in which I address them as “Great and Good Friend,” and sign myself “Your good friend.” These letters are meaningless; but perhaps on the whole not otherwise objectionable, when formally and conventionally announcing that I have sent a minister or ambassador or that I have received one. They strike me as absurd and fatuous only when I congratulate the sovereigns on the birth of babies, with eighteen or twenty names, to people of whose very existence I have never heard; or condole with them on the deaths of unknown individuals. Still if trouble would be caused by abandoning this foolish custom, then it would be far more foolish to cause the trouble than it is to keep to the custom.

  But, on a serious occasion, as in the present instance where a statesman of rank has come here on a mission which may possess real importance, then there should be some kind of effort to write a speech that shall be simple, and that shall say something, or, if this is deemed inexpedient, that shall at least not be of a fatuity so great that it is humiliating to read it. It should be reasonably
grammatical, and should not be wholly meaningless. In the draft of the letter handed me, for instance, I am made to say of the letter I receive: “I accept it with quite exceptional sentiments as a message of especial friendship.” Of course any boy in school who wrote a sentence like that would be severely and properly disciplined. The next sentence goes on: “I receive it with the more profound sentiments in that you bring it now no less from the Emperor.” What in Heaven’s name did the composer of this epistle mean by “more profound sentiments” and “quite exceptional sentiments”? Cannot he write ordinary English? Continuing, at the end of the same sentence he speaks of the new Government and what he anticipates from it, in terms that would not be out of place in a prophecy about Alexander the Great on the occasion of his accession to the throne of Macedon. Politeness is necessary, but gushing and obviously insincere and untruthful compliments merely make both sides ridiculous; and are underbred in addition.

  Woodrow Wilson

  WOODROW WILSON entertained not even the slightest political inclinations as a young man. Rather, after earning his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University, he embarked on an academic career. At that point, obviously in an exuberant mood, Wilson wrote the following to Ellen Louise Axson, the woman he married a few months later in 1885:

  Dear Ellen:

  It may shock you—it ought to, but I’m afraid it will not—to learn that I have a reputation amongst most of my kin and certain of my friends for being irrepressible, in select circles, as a maker of grotesque addresses from the precarious elevation of chair seats, as a wearer of all varieties of comic grimaces, as a simulator of sundry unnatural, burlesque styles of voice and speech, as a lover of farces—even as a dancer of the cancan!

  Winston Churchill

  IN 1919, ENGLAND suffered a severe drought. A prominent British duke, the Duke of Rutland, urged that there be included in the Church of England’s prayer book some “Prayers for Rain.” Winston Churchill, at that time Secretary of War, heard of this and, signing the letter “Scorpio,” penned this satirical missive to the London Times:

  June 12, 1919

  To the Editor of The Times

  Sir:

  Observing reports in various newspapers that prayers are about to be offered up for rain in order that the present serious drought may be terminated, I venture to suggest that great care should be taken in framing the appeal.

  On the last occasion when this extreme step was resorted to, the Duke of Rutland took the leading part with so much well-meaning enthusiasm that the resulting downpour was not only sufficient for all immediate needs, but was considerably in excess of what was actually required, with the consequence that the agricultural community had no sooner been delivered from the drought than they were clamouring for a special interposition to relieve them from deluge. Profiting by this experience, we ought surely on this occasion to be extremely careful to state exactly what we want in precise terms, so as to obviate the possibility of any misunderstanding, and to economise so far as possible the need for these special appeals. After so many days of drought, it certainly does not seem unreasonable to ask for a change in the weather, and faith in a favorable response may well be fortified by actuarial probabilities.

  While therefore welcoming the suggestion that His Grace should once again come forward, I cannot help feeling that the Board of Agriculture should first of all be consulted. They should draw up a schedule of the exact amount of rainfall required in the interests of this year’s harvest in different parts of the country. This schedule could be placarded in the various places of worship at the time when the appeal is made. It would no doubt be unnecessary to read out the whole schedule during the service, so long as it was made clear at the time that this is what we have in our minds, and what we actually want at the present serious juncture.

  I feel sure that this would be a much more business-like manner of dealing with the emergency than mere vague appeals for rain. But after all, even this scheme, though greatly favorable to the haphazard methods previously employed, is in itself only a partial makeshift. What we really require to pray for is the general amelioration of the British climate. What is the use of having these piecemeal interpositions—now asking for sunshine, and now for rain? Would it not be far better to ascertain by scientific investigation, conducted under the auspices of a Royal Commission, what is the proportion of sunshine and rain best suited to the ripening of the crops? It would no doubt be necessary that other interests beside agriculture should be represented, but there must be certain broad general reforms in the British weather upon which an overwhelming consensus of opinion could be found. The proper proportion of rain and sunshine during each period of the year; the regulation of the rain largely due to the hours of darkness; the apportionment of rain and sunshine as between different months, with proper reference not only to crops but to holidays; all these could receive due consideration. A really scientific basis of climatic reform would be achieved. These reforms, when duly embodied in an official volume, could be made the object of the sustained appeals of the nation over many years, and embodied in general prayers of a permanent and not of an exceptional character. We should not then be forced from time to time to have recourse to such appeals at particular periods, which, since they are unrelated to any general plan, must run the risk of deranging the whole economy of nature, and involve the interruption and deflection of universal processes, causing reactions of the utmost complexity in many directions which it is impossible for us with our limited knowledge to foresee.

  I urge you, Sir, to lend the weight of your powerful organ to the systematisation of our appeals for the reform of the British climate.

  Yours very faithfully,

  Scorpio

  Herbert Hoover

  COMMENTING ON HIS earlier days as a surveyor in the High Sierra, Nevada, President Herbert Hoover wrote:

  In these long mountain rides over trails and through the brush, I arrived finally at the conclusion that a horse was one of the original mistakes of creation. I felt he was too high off the ground for convenience and safety on mountain trails. He would have been better if he had been given a dozen legs so that he had the smooth and sure pace of a centipede. Furthermore, he should have had scales as protection against flies, and a larger water tank like a camel. All these gadgets were known to creation prior to the geologic period when the horse was evolved. Why were they not used?

  A young visitor to the White House had the unexpected pleasure of being invited to join President Hoover for lunch. Sometime later, Hoover received a note from the boy telling him that no one in the boy’s hometown believed he had actually dined with the president, or that spinach had been served. Hoover promptly replied:

  The White House

  My Dear Stephan:

  This is to certify that you lunched at the White House with me. I have never been strong for spinach myself, and I had meant to tell you that you didn’t have to eat it.

  Herbert Hoover

  In response to another child’s request for his autograph, Hoover wrote:

  I was delighted to see that you were not a professional autograph hunter. Once upon a time, one of those asked me for three autographs. I inquired why. He said, “It takes two of yours to get one of Babe Ruth’s.”

  Franklin Delano Roosevelt

  FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT had quite a close relationship with his mother, to say the least. Here’s a letter from Roosevelt to his mother written while on board the S.S. Carillo between Cuba and Jamaica in 1912, when he would have been thirty years old:

  We all go about in our shirts, no coats except at meals, but trousers of course. The few women are still entirely covered, but we anticipate what greater heat will bring forth.

  In 1935, FDR wrote to his friend and constituent Newton D. Baker in Cleveland:

  Dear Newton:

  I was sorry not to have a chance to see you while you were here.

  Dan Roper has shown me your letter of September eighteenth. I know you will not mind. I know
also that you will not mind my telling you that I think you are entirely wrong in your thought that constitutional amendment will of necessity be an issue in the next presidential campaign.

  As a Senator with a sense of humor remarked to me today, “The Republican National Committee in secret confab searched the woods for an issue; they discarded the constitutional issue and decided in a month or two to come out in favor of the Ten Commandments, proclaiming from housetops that the Democratic Party wished

  To amend the Ten Commandments

  To add to the Ten Commandments

  To scrap the Ten Commandments

  On this issue they are confident that they can sweep the country.”

  I wish much that I could have a chance to see you again. After I get back from my little trip, do run down to Washington and have lunch with me.

  In 1937, the U.S. ambassador to England, Robert W. Bingham, wrote to FDR that he would have preferred to wear trousers when he attended the coronation of King George VI, but that all members of the diplomatic corps were requested to wear knee breeches. All the ambassadors had complied, including the Soviet ambassador. FDR wrote back:

  Dear Bob:

  Having a sense of humor, I have been delighted with your letter in regard to the famous case of Trousers vs. Breeches. My ruling is: that Ambassadors should wear trousers unless the Sovereign of the State to which he is accredited makes a personal demand for knee breeches. I am fortified in this ruling by the pictures I have seen of Comrade Litvinoff in the aforesaid short pants. If Soviet Russia can stand it, I guess we can too.