NEWTON D. BAKER - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 10/12/1912 - HFSID 321190

NEWTON D. BAKER
As Mayor of Cleveland, he explains that he has been making many campaign appearances for Woodrow Wilson, and cannot take on an additional one in Pittsburgh.
Typed Letter signed: "Newton D. Baker" as Mayor, 1 page, 8½x11. Cleveland, 1912 October 12. On official letterhead to T. J. Keenan, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In full: "My absence from Cleveland has until now postponed this answer to your letter of October 7th. It would, of course, be unalloyed pleasure to me if I could come to Pittsburgh on the 18th, but I have already spent a week in Iowa and Wisconsin and I have several other out of town engagements already definitely made so that further absences from Cleveland are impossible. Our local situation must be looked after and the burden of it I fear will fall on me. Please believe me very grateful to you for thinking of me and also full of regret that I cannot have the pleasure of being with you and with Governor Wilson on the occasion you suggest. Cordially yours". Newton D. 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). This letter was written 3½ weeks before the 1912 Presidential Election. Woodrow Wilson, the Democrat, carried Ohio, while Progressive Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt carried Pennsylvania, Republican incumbent President William Howard Taft finished a poor third in both states. The margins of victory were wide enough that Baker's presence at a rally in Pittsburgh, or his absence from Cleveland, would not have changed either outcome. Multiple folds. Heavily toned. Surface creases. Corners lightly worn and creased. Soiled. Stain on top margin. Otherwise, fine condition.