Roosevelt a Study in Ambivalence

From an advertisement in The Publishers Weekly, Vol. 95 [1919]
Did America Know Theodore Roosevelt? Did Theodore Roosevelt Know Himself?

The answer to these questions is contained in a remarkable psycho-analytic study of Theodore Roosevelt, richly illustrated with portraits, facsimile letters, etc., with startling revelations of Mr. Roosevelt's real attitude on matters of international interest, to be published shortly by the Jackson Press.

The author, George Sylvester Viereck, describes a secret visit with Dr. Dernburg to Oyster Bay. He reprints his animated correspondence, leading to a complete break with Mr. Roosevelt, on the subject of Belgium and America's neutrality. He also discloses Mr. Roosevelt's private opinion of the English. Viereck's audacity makes his reader gasp.

In a striking introduction, entitled "Apologia Pro Vita Sua," Mr. Viereck portrays with biting sarcasm and withering scorn, his persecution during the period of the war. His brilliant portrait of America in war-time is one of the documents that will furnish food for thought to the historian of the future.

In spite of its name, Mr. Viereck's preface is not an apology, but an indictment. He lays bare the secret springs in our national life. He contrasts the so-called German Propaganda and the Propaganda fathered by Lord Northcliffe. Benedict Arnold, he tells us, was the first of a long line of British Propagandists.

At Mr. Viereck's touch, skeletons walk from political closets.

Viereck and the Critics: We quote herewith a few excerpts from reviews of Mr. Viereck's previous books:

"The genius of the writer is never, in doubt."-Edward J. Wheeler, President of the Poetry Society of America, in Current Literature.

"Mr. Viereck reveals a vast knowledge of life...." -Charles Hanson Towne, of the Vigilantes, in Town Topics.

"I knew you were a genius." -Gertrude Atherton, Member of the Vigilantes and of the Advisory Council of the Author's League of America.

"A charming and remarkable poet...." -Ellis Parker Butler, of the Vigilantes and of the Advisory Council of the Authors' League, in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

"Indeed a poet of original mind and an exceptionally forcible and magnetic literary gift." -Richard Le Gallienne, in the North American Review.

"Talent, Mr. Viereck has - talent and a wonderful sense of poetic art; and courage too." -New York Evening Sun.

"There can be no question that he possesses in a high degree, that quality of finality which he accepts as the ultimate criterion of art." -William Aspenwall Bradley, in the New York Times Saturday Review of Books.

"Perhaps no poet now writing is more proficient in the loud symphonious lay." -Atlantic Monthly.

"Intellectually... the heir of two races, and we might add, of three nations, for the combined genius of Germany, England, and America has gone into his poetic crucible."-Prof. James Routh, in the Bulletin of Washington University.

"His brain is a diamond, that flashes forth experience in phrase and epigram without ....Startling ideas tumble over each other...." -Cleveland Plain Dealer.

"The Alexander Hamilton of American literature." -Alexander Harvey, in the St. Louis Mirror.