NEWTON D. BAKER - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 03/16/1932 - HFSID 297054

 

NEWTON D. BAKER
The former Secretary of War gracefully declines an invitation.
Typed Letter signed: "Newton D. Baker", 1 page, 8½x11. Cleveland, Illinois, 1932 March 16. On letterhead of Baker, Hostetler, Sidlo & Patterson [his law firm] to Walter F. Ellis, President of Trinity Men's Club, Springfield, Massachusetts, in full: "Of course I remember with pleasure meeting you and Mrs. Ellis at Dr. Garfield's house last summer. Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to accept the invitation to come to Springfield this spring. A somewhat improvident set of promises were made last fall which still remain to be performed, but beyond them my professional burdens are such that it is impossible for me to come and so I have to deny myself what would otherwise be a very great pleasure. With every good wish for the success of your club, which seems to me an interesting and promising service, believe me, Cordially yours". Newton Diehl Baker (1871-1937) was Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio (1912-1915) before serving as President Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of War from 1916 to1921. It was Baker who, on June 27, 1918, pulled numbers out of a fishbowl, drafting men ages 21 to 31 into the military for World War I. Baker electrified the 1924 Democratic National Convention with a fiery speech advocating US membership in the League of Nations and a return to Wilsonian principles in foreign policy. Baker was a skilled lawyer, who argued a case successfully before the Supreme Court (1926). Although Baker was not an announced Presidential candidate in 1932, the year of this letter, he was working behind the scenes to promote himself as an alternative candidate should Franklin Roosevelt fail to secure the nomination. Toned. Multiple mailing folds. Otherwise, fine condition.