I came across this piece the other day. It is a February 1917 advertisement for Metropolitan Magazine advising subscribers, and potential subscribers, to get their accounts up-to-date before the subscription rates go up. What drew my eye was the line near the bottom admonishing: “Don’t Forget! THEODORE ROOSEVELT writes EXCLUSIVELY for the METROPOLITAN.”

It is often lost on us that Roosevelt first-and-foremost saw himself as a writer, and not just in a theoretical sense; he relied on his writing to pay the bills, maintain a large house, and provide for a wife, six kids and growing brood of grandchildren. That said he also appreciated the power that a regular writing gig offered him in getting his views out, especially after losing the bully pulpit. Roosevelt began at The Outlook just days after leaving the White House in 1909 and by the mid-1910s was producing a monthly column for the Metropolitan. Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jack London and John Reed were just a few of the other contributors to what the publishers called “the livest magazine in America.”

This February 1917 advert emphasized Roosevelt’s exclusivity to the Metropolitan but actually he did not stay with the magazine much longer. Events relating to the Great War were now moving so quickly that the monthly format was no longer practical for Roosevelt. In late summer the Kansas City Star began to woo the Colonel and in early October he published the first of his weekly editorials about the war for that newspaper, with a focus on what he saw as Woodrow Wilson’s poor response to the conflict. He stayed with the Star until the end of his life fifteen months later.

(image/Brooklyn Daily Eagle)