Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - July - 2007 Issue
More Historic Americana from David Lesser Antiquarian Books
William Gibbs McAdoo and Eleanor Wilson McAdoo.
One does not expect to hear a passionate attack on slavery from North Carolina, but that's just what Peter Clemmons provided in 1812 in Poor Peter's Call to his Children, and to All Others who can Hear and Believe. Clemmons was a Quaker from North Carolina who freed his slaves and denounced others who "live in luxury on the labour of the poor black people..." He gets even more blunt in his criticism by noting "...many of these proud delicate beings [slaveholders], will go to the bed of the despised negroes, both male and female, and commit adultery, whoredom, and mingle their seed with those they will not suffer to set down at their tables and eat bread with them." Item 21. $3,500.
Lesser has several letters that were sent to Democratic political leader William Gibbs McAdoo. McAdoo was an attorney involved in high finance at the turn of the century, and was instrumental in building tunnels under the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey. He was appointed by President Wilson to serve as Secretary of the Treasury in 1913. McAdoo led the country through the financial difficulties arising from the First World War. In 1914, he married Wilson's daughter, but his offer to resign as a result was turned down by the President. In 1918, McAdoo did resign to return to private practice, but in both 1920 and 1924, he sought the Democratic nomination for president. In each case, he led on the first ballot, but eventually lost to others. However, he would be elected Senator from California during the 1930s. In 1935, he divorced the former Miss Wilson and married a 26-year-old nurse, probably not a good political move, but a wise personal one as he was 71 at the time. A nurse might come in handy. William McAdoo died in 1941.
Item 94 is a letter McAdoo received in 1919 from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. "Junior" was the son of the founder of Standard Oil, and a very successful businessman, financier and developer in his own right, who is even better remembered as an enormously generous philanthropist. He was John Senior's only son, and father to the five Rockefeller brothers, including former Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller. In this letter, Rockefeller notes that he is sending McAdoo a copy of a speech given by the Canadian Premier at a recent industrial conference. $400.
Item 95 is a typed, signed letter from 1911 from Theodore Roosevelt to McAdoo. In the letter Roosevelt promises to read a speech McAdoo recently gave. The connection is interesting since McAdoo would work for Wilson's campaign the following year, while Roosevelt would bolt from the Republican Party to run for president as an independent. In doing so, he split the Republican vote, enabling Wilson to be elected. $750.
David M. Lesser Fine Antiquarian Books is found online at www.lesserbooks.com, telephone 203-389-8111.
