The AP reports:
The original letter in which Theodore Roosevelt first used the phrase “Speak softly and carry a big stick” is up for sale from the Raab Collection in Philadelphia, with an asking price of $200,000.
The two-page typed letter was written by Roosevelt on Jan. 26, 1900, and mailed to Henry L. Sprague, a member of the Union League Club in New York.
In the letter, Roosevelt, then governor of New York, expresses his pleasure in convincing the state’s Republican leaders to reject the reappointment of Louis F. Payn as insurance commissioner.
“I have always been fond of the West African proverb: ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.’ If I had not carried the big stick . . . I would not have had ten votes. But I was entirely good humored, kept perfectly cool and steadfastly refused to listen to anything save that Payn had to go, and that I would take none but a thoroughly upright and capable man in his place.”
