Washington File
Feb. 18, 2006
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State Department (DOS)
State Department (DOS)

U.S. Citizens Fearlessly Communicate with Their Head of State

Book chronicles centuries of letters sent to American presidents

By Michael Jay Friedman
Washington File Staff Writer

     Few exchanges illustrate the high value the United States places on free speech as the centuries of correspondence directed by common citizens to the president of the United States.

     One letter, handwritten on a two-by-four block of wood, is insistent: "Immediate action must be taken." A telegram is harsher: "You are a sell-out a jackass and a dolt." A third missive, scrawled on a sheet of loose-leaf paper, is more positive: "I like your courage....I wish you would write me back."

     These letters, addressed simply to "Mister President" and received by Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, respectively, illustrate Americans' readiness to criticize, praise or simply offer advice to their presidents.

     Letters to the Oval Office, compiled by Dwight Young with an introduction by NBC News anchorman Brian Williams and published by the National Geographic Society, reproduces a sampling of letters addressed to the presidents over the past 216 years.

     The editorial process was daunting: President Bush receives up to 100,000 letters each week. Nonetheless, this compilation of correspondence from the serious and sad to the frivolous and fun demonstrates how millions of Americans, and even citizens of other nations, perceive the president as approachable, interested, perhaps even friendly. It also underscores the confidence U.S. citizens have in their right to express their opinions freely.

     This tradition dates back to George Washington, the first president of the United States (1789-1797), whose birthday the United States celebrates on the third Monday of each February. Eager to establish a precedent that the U.S. president is neither a king nor a nobleman, but merely first among equals, Washington rejected such titles as "Protector of Liberties," and "Your High Mightiness," announcing that he would answer to no title save the plain "Mister President."

     Washington's modesty set a crucial precedent and established the tenor of the relationship between the president and the citizens of the United States. Americans and non-Americans alike over the years have felt free to praise, criticize, complain to and request favors from the individual who answers to the unadorned title, "Mr. President."

     Presidents have received correspondence on nearly every subject imaginable. One of particular importance was dated August 28, 1864, from Annie Davis of Belair, Maryland, to Abraham Lincoln. Davis, a Maryland slave, had heard of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which ended slavery in the breakaway Confederate States of America. Maryland, however, had remained in the Union, leading to Davis' question: "you will please let me know if we are free....I write to you for advice. please send me word this week or as soon as possible." Ultimately, Maryland slaves were emancipated in November 1864.

     Not surprising, matters of war and peace supplied a frequent context for appeals to the president. In 1898, as the Spanish-American War approached, expert marksman Annie Oakley stood "ready to place a company of fifty lady sharpshooters" at William McKinley's disposal.

Einstein Writing a Letter to FDR Albert Einstein and Hungarian emigre physicist Leo Szilard draft a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Aug. 2, 1939.

     Thirty-five years later, French R. Massey of Childersburg, Alabama, also was eager to see action, but, as he wrote Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Mother and Dad will not sign the necessary papers to enlist...so I appeal to you to lower the draft age to seventeen (17) as soon as possible." Ten-year-old Carolyn Weatherhogg, of Lincoln, Nebraska, whose surname was near the end of the English alphabet, was less enthusiastic: "I am sending in a suggestion," she wrote, "that is draft fathers alphabetically." Anticipating FDR's prompt response, Weatherhogg helpfully enclosed her telephone number.
 
     Although these letters did not produce immediate presidential action, others changed the course of history. An August 2, 1939, letter from physicist Albert Einstein to Roosevelt warned that Nazi Germany likely was working toward "extremely powerful bombs of a new type." Einstein's letter helped spur the Manhattan Project, the top-secret effort that created the first atomic bomb.

Wide Range of Advice, Criticism

     Americans traditionally have felt free both to admonish their presidents and to offer practical advice. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. demanded of President John F. Kennedy "your commitment to use everything within your constitutional power to enforce the desegregation orders of the courts." Kennedy also might have consulted with 12-year-old Leah Russell of Miami, who previously had advised Dwight D. Eisenhower to blindfold all schoolchildren regardless of race. "I think that all of them would have a lot of fun," she wrote, "and there wouldn't be any fights."

     Both the informal tone--sometimes sharp, sometimes chatty--and the wide variety of subjects, many far outside the political issues of the day, demonstrate Americans' presumed intimacy with their presidents. When Lyndon B. Johnson was photographed lifting a beagle by the ears, the Texas Humane Federation was quick to rebuke him: "Every Texan should know what the ears on a dog are for--they are not handles, they are to hear with."

     A Carteret, New Jersey, second-grader felt that Harry S. Truman would want to know that his class raised $20.60 for the March of Dimes by selling hot chocolate and cookies. The 1958 drafting into military service of the popular singer Elvis Presley inspired a protest from three Montana youngsters to President Eisenhower: "We think it's enough to send Elvis Presley in the Army, but if you cut his sideburns off, we will just die!" (The sideburns grew back; the youngsters presumably survived.)

     One need not be an American to write a U.S. president. In November 1940, for instance, "My good friend Roosvelt [sic]" received a plea from 12-year-old Fidel Castro of Santiago, Cuba. "I don't know very English, but I know as much as write to you," the future dictator began. "If you like, give me a ten dollar bill green American, in the letter, because...I would like to have one of them."

Presidential Responses

     Sometimes, the president writes back. On April 18, 1984, seventh-grade student Andy Smith of Irmo, South Carolina, sought help from Ronald Reagan. "Today my mother declared my bedroom a disaster area. I would like to request federal funds to hire a crew to clean up my room. I am prepared to provide the initial funds if you will provide matching funds for this project."

     Smith likely was stunned to receive a yellow legal sheet bearing Reagan's handwritten reply. After noting a technical difficulty--only the authority declaring the disaster, in this case Smith's mother, was authorized to seek federal funds--the president suggested the young man investigate the administration's private-sector initiative program, which called for solving local problems through volunteerism.

     These and millions of other letters to American presidents are the property not of the presidents themselves, but of the American people. They are housed at the National Archives in Washington and at the individual presidential libraries throughout the nation, where any member of the public may inspect them.

     Today's Americans exercise with relish the freedom to write, fax, or e-mail the White House in large part because of George Washington, the man who would accept no title other than "Mister President."

• (The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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