A Witness to History (Sort of)

Although not particularly substantive, this Howard Pyle letter - written 122 years ago today - to Mrs. John G. Milburn of Buffalo, New York, is of interest by association.

Mrs. John G. Milburn’s husband was President of the Pan-American Exposition Company and the Milburns lent a suite of rooms in their house at 1168 Delaware Avenue to President and Mrs. William McKinley to use during their visit to the Exposition in 1901.

After spending two nights with the Milburns, on the afternoon of September 6, 1901, the President was shot pointblank in the abdomen by Leon Czolgosz at the Exposition’s Temple of Music.

Following an operation at the Exposition hospital, McKinley was taken by ambulance to the Milburn house. There, Abraham Lincoln’s son Robert and Vice President Theodore Roosevelt (among dozens of others, apparently) came to visit while McKinley convalesced. And it was there, on September 14, 1901, exactly 18 months to the day after Pyle wrote his letter - which must have been somewhere on the premises - President McKinley succumbed to his wounds.

A Birthday Card for Theodore Roosevelt

Although I have yet to find out when exactly Howard Pyle and Theodore Roosevelt first met (the earliest known in-the-same-room-at-the-same-time instance was at a January 1896 dinner in honor of Owen Wister), by 1898 Pyle was referring to the then-Assistant Secretary of the Navy as “my friend”.

Their bond, I gather, had its roots in their mutual love of history, but after 1901 Pyle also became an enthusiastic supporter of then-President Roosevelt’s policies. In addition to Pyle’s occasional visits to the White House, the two exchanged letters and favors over the years, and on the eve of Roosevelt’s turning 50, Pyle sent him the drawing shown here, which prompted the following thank-you note:

October 27, 1908.

My dear Mr. Pyle:

Who could have a more beautiful birthday card? I shall prize it always for its own sake and still more for the sake of the donor.

Always your friend,

Theodore Roosevelt

Pyle’s original pen-and-ink drawing now belongs to the Theodore Roosevelt Collection in the Houghton Library at Harvard University.

Teddy Roosevelt Checks In With Mrs. Pyle

If you scroll through the Theodore Roosevelt Papers at the Library of Congress, you’ll find this kindly letter to Howard Pyle’s widow - written one hundred years ago today:

SAGAMORE HILL

Oyster Bay, N.Y., July 18, 1914.

My dear Mrs. Pyle:

Mrs. Roosevelt wrote you some time ago and had no answer. I am writing you now merely to find out how you are and how you are getting along. You know how I valued your husband, and I do wish to know a little bit how life is going with you.

Faithfully yours,

Theodore Roosevelt

Mrs. Howard Pyle,
Wilmington, Del.

When I went a-scrolling myself a long while back, I was unable to find a copy of Mrs. Roosevelt’s letter, or one Mrs. Pyle may or may not have sent in reply to this one. But I like the idea of the former president remembering his friend - and reaching out to his widow - that summer day.

Testimonials to Howard Pyle

In honor of Howard Pyle’s 161st birthday, here are a few kind words from some of his friends and admirers:

“You write about a beautiful sheet in the Graphic by Howard Pyle. If you mean a composition that reminds one of Terborch or Nicolaas Keyzer - ‘Penn and the Colonists’ - yes, I was struck by it too, so much so that I have ordered the issue. Yes, it is a damned fine thing.” (Vincent Van Gogh to Anthon Ridder van Rappard, c.May 9, 1883)

“It was not so much the actual things he taught us as contact with his personality that really counted. Somehow after a talk with him you felt inspired to go out and do great things, and wondered afterwards by what magic he did it” (Maxfield Parrish to Richard Wayne Lykes, March 28, 1945)

“I haven’t before had a chance to express to you my very heart felt admiration for your noble series of illustrations for my ‘Washington.’ They dignify and illuminate the work in every way.” (Woodrow Wilson to Howard Pyle, October 27, 1896)

“The virility and poetry and the beauty of it are remarkable” (Augustus Saint-Gaudens to Howard Pyle, June 20, 1902)

“It was a great idea, a fortunate idea, to re-write the Round Table Tales, & I am your grateful servant. You are giving them a new charm & grace & beauty; they have gained, not lost, under your hand. They were never so finely told in prose before. And then the pictures - one can never tire of examining them & studying them. Long ago you made the best Robin Hood that was ever written, & your Morté d’Arthur is going to be another masterpiece. It was a great idea; I am glad it was born to you.” (Samuel L. Clemens to Howard Pyle, January 1, 1903)

“Will Mr. Howard Pyle accept through me the love of seven big and little children to whom he taught the beauty of language and of line, and to whom, in a desert place, he sent the precious message of Romance.” (Willa Cather inscription to Howard Pyle in The Troll Garden, April 26, 1906)

“Eleven and twelve years old we were, most of us, but I’ll wager no one of us has forgotten him, no one of us but has looked back on those wintry afternoons in the pleasant fire-lighted studio many times, realizing how vital a part of our background, literary and artistic, it has become. I was at boarding school when the news of his death in Florence reached me, and I knew then I had lost a very real friend.” (Virginia Kirkus in The Horn Book Magazine, November 1929)

“One of the very best men I know anywhere, one of the pleasantest companions, stanchest friends, and best citizens, is Mr. Howard Pyle, the artist.” (Theodore Roosevelt to Gifford Pinchot, September 9, 1907)

“I think that pirate duel is the most terrific thing I ever saw. I had almost all the sensations I have enjoyed at a prize fight. Oh if I were only a pluto I’d have that in the middle of my shack and when I wanted to be lifted out of the dreary run of existence I would take a look.” (Frederic Remington to Howard Pyle, November 13, 1908)

“There are many in this world who radiate the feeling of love and earnestness of purpose, but who have not the faculty or power to impart the rudiments of accomplishment. There is nothing in this world to inspire the integrity of youth like the combined strength of spirituality and practical headway. It gives the young student a definite clew, as it were, to the usefulness of being upright and earnest. Howard Pyle abounded in this combined power, and lavished it upon all who were serious.” (N. C. Wyeth in The Christian Science Monitor. November 13, 1912)

“I myself have always wondered that more people were not affected by Mr. Pyle’s piercing fineness of spiritual vision.... I don’t know any other American who had his extraordinary combination of fine qualities.” (Dorothy Canfield Fisher to Charles David Abbott, May 20, 1925)

“The battle picture at St. Paul is absolutely one of the most remarkable pictures of modern times.... You, of course, know of Mr. Pyle’s work through his illustrations, but unless you know the man personally you cannot realize what a perfectly charming fellow he is and how very beautiful and strong his paintings. He seems to cover a very wide range of subjects with absolute surety, and while preserving historic detail he never loses vitality and intense personal quality, while his sense of the decorative and the picturesque is most remarkable.” (Cass Gilbert to Ralph Adams Cram, December 31, 1907)

“It is quite unnecessary for you to talk to me about Howard Pyle, for there is no man in the United States for whom I have a more profound admiration.” (Ralph Adams Cram to Cass Gilbert, January 2, 1908)

“I have never valued a friend more.” (William Dean Howells to Gertrude Brincklé, October 17, 1919)

Pyle, Taft, and the Panama Canal

On January 5, 1905, Mr. and Mrs. Howard Pyle attended the Cabinet Dinner at the White House, where they dined on Harlequin Sandwiches, Potage Clear Green Turtle, Curled Celery, Terrapin à la Baltimore, Supreme of Chicken Villeroi with fresh mushrooms, Egyptian Quails à l'Estouffade - among other delicacies - and later stayed over night as guests of President Roosevelt.

Also at the dinner was Secretary of War William Howard Taft. After Taft was elected in 1908, Pyle wrote to congratulate him and said:

...I remember sitting at a small table in the White House with you and Mr. Cadwalader after the Cabinet dinner, and hearing you tell Mr. Cadwalader of your intentions concerning the Panama Canal. What you said to Mr. Cadwalader was said so simply and so unaffectedly that I carried away with me the impression that you were one of the strongest men in the world.

Pyle told others of his encounter with Taft that night - Edward Noble Vallandigham, for one, recalled of his friend Pyle:

He became some years ago an enthusiastic admirer of Mr. Roosevelt, and was several times entertained at the White House. Upon one of these occasions he met Mr. Taft, then of the cabinet, heard him talk of the Panama Canal, and came away deeply impressed with his easy mastery of a great subject. “He seemed,” said Pyle, “as familiar with that vast undertaking as I should be with the laying of a drain in my back yard.”

Pyle’s enthusiasm for Taft - which seems to have been kindled 108 years ago tonight - eventually led him to provide some last minute, but apparently invaluable assistance to Taft’s 1908 campaign.

But more on that another time. Now it’s off to bed for the Pyles, where they can digest the above-mentioned items - as well as their Smithfield Ham Glace (Hot) with Madeira sauce and spinach, their Peaches Melba and their Blue Point Oysters - and brace themselves for breakfast with Theodore Roosevelt.

How Are We Going to Vote This Year?

“Whither?” by Howard Pyle (1904)

...Now the fate of the nation lies with us voters to determine.

It does not lie with the Republican Candidate nor with the Democratic Candidate. They are our servants and only do our bidding when we elect them to office.

The VOTER must decide which of these two parties to put in power, and he alone.

He is the sovereign, and upon him lies the entire responsibility of that decision. So we had better take care what we are about when we cast our ballot. Don’t let us be too quick about it; let us take time to think!...

So how are we going to vote this year? THAT is the question!

—From “How Are We Going To Vote This Year?” by Howard Pyle, published anonymously in Collier’s Weekly for November 5, 1904 (and subsequently reprinted in various newspapers). Theodore Roosevelt wrote, “I think it is as good a thing as we have had in this campaign, and I want to thank you for it with all my heart.” And journalist Richard Victor Oulahan later remarked, “I have been told that the cartoon entitled ‘Whither?’ with the accompanying reading matter entitled ‘How Are We Going to Vote This Year?’ was more effective as a campaign advertisement than anything else put out in behalf of President Roosevelt by the Literary Bureau of the National Committee.”

Pyle, Lincoln, and Roosevelt

“Abraham Lincoln” by Howard Pyle (1907)

On this day 150 years ago - February 21, 1861 - President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived in Philadelphia en (circuitous) route to Washington, D.C.. After a 34-gun salute, he rode from the depot in an open barouche pulled by four white horses to the Continental Hotel as anywhere from 100,000 to a quarter of a million people cheered him on. Mrs. Margaret C. Pyle was one of the onlookers, having come up from Wilmington, Delaware, at the invitation of a friend.

Some 46 years later, Mrs. Pyle’s son Howard painted this illustration for “Lincoln’s Last Day” by William H. Crook (Harper’s Monthly Magazine, September 1907). During a visit to the studio, Mrs. Anna Roosevelt Cowles got to see the original oil on canvas, and Pyle reported to her younger brother, Theodore Roosevelt:

She appeared to be moved by the pathos of the image which I had attempted to depict, and I told her then that the inspiration of your tireless and energetic struggle for the benefit of a great people had had a large, if not a dominant, influence upon my presenting the picture of your great fellow-president.

You also will always be remembered as one who has given the best efforts of his life to the combatting of a gigantic evil and for the preservation of the best interests, and the enlargement of the future happiness of his fellow men.

The painting was subsequently sold in Chicago - possibly at an exhibition of Pyle’s works at Marshall Field & Company in December 1909 - and hasn’t been seen in public since then.

Lunch at the White House, January 2, 1908

One of the several lunches Howard Pyle enjoyed at the White House occurred on this day in 1908. This time, Theodore Roosevelt hosted Pyle and his two eldest sons, Theodore, 18, and Howard Jr., 16, as well as Eugene A. Philbin and William Howard Taft, then Secretary of War.

Pyle was an ardent supporter of Roosevelt and Taft, and the propaganda he contributed to their respective campaigns in 1904 and 1908 helped both men get elected. After the latter beat William Jennings Bryan in November 1908, Pyle wrote to the President-elect:

I believe that the country will look to this epoch as one of the greatest in its history - first upon the heroic figure of Theodore Roosevelt inaugurating the new purposes of a new national life, and secondly upon you, who are so preeminently fitted for the task, carrying forward the work which he has so magnificently begun to an equally magnificent fullfilment [sic].

This I know you will do, just as the whole country knows that you will do it.

I do not know whether you will recollect that I and my two boys lunched in your company at the White House last December [sic], and that as we left the White House together I said to you that my two boys would not be able to vote for you this time but that they would both vote for you for a second term. You see that, under Providence, my prediction is in the way of being fulfilled.

Pyle could really lay it on thick, sometimes. While Taft thanked him for his “earnest and enthusiastic expressions of good will and of hopefulness for the coming administration,” he added, self-deprecatingly (if presciently), “I am a good deal in doubt about it myself, as I am under the load. I have got to do the best I can to lift it.”

In view of Taft’s abandonment of many of his predecessor’s policies, I wonder if Pyle’s enthusiasm ever waned - and (as I’ve mentioned elsewhere) I wonder what he would have made of the 1912 presidential race, had he lived to see it unfold.

Howard Pyle and Teddy Roosevelt Do Lunch

Theodore Roosevelt and his four sons by Arthur Hewitt (via NYPL Digital Gallery)

On March 19, 1904, Howard Pyle took the train down from Wilmington, Delaware, to Washington, D.C., for a 1.30 p.m. lunch at the White House. The meal was wedged in between President Theodore Roosevelt’s 11.45 a.m. chat with Admiral Dewey and a 2.30 p.m. meeting with Booker T. Washington. (I often wonder if Pyle met either men on his way in or out - though I should note that there were three other meetings scheduled between Dewey’s and Pyle’s). First thing that same day, Arthur Hewitt took several photographs of Roosevelt and his family, including the one shown above.

The purpose of Pyle’s visit was to talk politics: a Wilmington newspaper had asked him to write what he thought of Theodore Roosevelt's then two-and-a-half-year-old administration. “I have endeavored to do so as honestly and courageously as possible,” he told Roosevelt's secretary, William Loeb, on March 16, “but, now that it is done, I feel, in view of the fact that the President stands in the relation of a personal friend, I should submit the paper to him before publishing it - that is if you think he will care to see it.” Pyle figured that other newspapers might quote him, and he planned to expand the piece (which he also sent) into a magazine article - “Hence a certain added importance to the few words I have written.”

Roosevelt objected to some of Pyle’s unintentionally, yet interpretably critical comments and warned, “Anything that you say will be apt to be taken as the best that a personal friend can say for me, and therefore any condemnation from you will be received and quoted independently of anything that you say that is favorable.” So he asked Pyle to come and talk things over - and, presumably, get “on message.”

Unfortunately, as luck would have it, I haven’t yet found the article Pyle wrote and don’t know if it ever appeared in either the Wilmington newspaper or in the magazine; Pyle mentioned that The Outlook might publish it, but, in looking at 1904 issues, it seems that they didn’t. I'll keep looking.

Below is the page from Roosevelt’s datebook for March 19, 1904 (please pardon the scratchy printout from a microfilm reel at the Library of Congress).

Presidents Day

Howard Pyle was on friendly terms with three presidents - or, more precisely, two presidents and one future president. The future president was Woodrow Wilson, with whom Pyle carried on a spirited correspondence while collaborating on two projects in 1895-96 and 1900-01. Pyle also knew - if only slightly - William Howard Taft and even wrote some bona fide propaganda for Taft’s 1908 campaign against William Jennings Bryan. But, above all, Pyle was closest to Theodore Roosevelt. And he certainly could lay it on thick sometimes...

If I may write so intimately, I would like to say that it [is] my strong and personal belief that you will stand forth in history as one of the very greatest of our presidents, and it is a matter of pride and joy to me to think that one whom I believe I may regard as a friend should be destined to descend into the future as so dominant and so inspiring a figure. (Howard Pyle to Theodore Roosevelt, September 11, 1907)

The admiration went both ways, however, and in honor of Presidents Day, here are some things Roosevelt said to or about Pyle:

This note introduces a particular friend of mine, Mr. Howard Pyle, the writer. He is a first-class fellow in every way and I commend him to your courtesy. (Letter to Captain W. H. Brownson, June 11, 1903)

You can hardly imagine, my dear fellow, how much I prize your good opinion, and how loath I should be to forfeit it. (Letter to Howard Pyle, July 5, 1904)

One of the very best men I know anywhere, one of the pleasantest companions, stanchest friends, and best citizens, is Mr. Howard Pyle, the artist.... he is as good a man as there is in the country. (Letter to Gifford Pinchot, September 9, 1907)

One of the pleasantest features of our time in Washington has been the friendship of you and dear Mrs. Pyle.
(Letter to Howard Pyle, February 19, 1909)

I’ve often wondered what Pyle would have made of the three-way presidential race of 1912 which pitted Taft, Roosevelt, and Wilson against each other. As Pyle was a lifelong Republican (though there’s a chance he turned Mugwump and voted for Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, in 1884), I doubt he would have considered voting for Wilson. And he believed in Taft because he thought Taft would “[carry] forward the work which [Roosevelt had] so magnificently begun to an equally magnificent fulfillment” (Pyle to Taft, November 5, 1908) - something that Taft didn’t really do, after all. So I think Pyle’s idolatry of Roosevelt (and his somewhat progressive tendencies) would have trumped party loyalty, and he would have become a Bull Mooser and followed Roosevelt wherever he went.