Een bescheiden tycoon

Een bescheiden tycoon

(William Kent had een enorm stuk land gedoneerd aan de overheid. President Roosevelt was verbaasd dat hij niet het park naar hemzelf genoemd wilde hebben)

Kentfield, CA
January 30, 1908

My dear Mr. Roosevelt:
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your message of appreciation, and hope and believe it will strengthen me to go on in an attempt to save more of the precious and vanishing glories of nature for a people too slow of perception.

Your kind suggestion of a change of name is not one that I can accept. So many millions of better people have died forgotten that to stencil one’s own name on a benefaction seems to carry with it an implication of mandate immortality, as being something purchasable.

I have five good, husky boys that I am trying to bring up to a knowledge of democracy and to a realizing sense of the rights of the “other fellow,” doctrines which you, sir, have taught with more vigor and effect than any man in my time. If these boys cannot keep the name of Kent alive, I am willing it should be forgotten.

I have this day sent you by mail a few photographs of Muir Woods, and trust that you will believe, before you see the real thing (which I hope will be soon), that our nation has acquired something worthwhile.
Yours truly,
William Kent

The White House
Washington, DC
February 5, 1908

My dear Mr. Kent:
By George! you are right. It is enough to do the deed and not to desire, as you say, to “stencil one’s own name on the benefaction.” Good for you, and for the five boys who are to keep the name of Kent alive! I have four who I hope will do the same thing by the name of Roosevelt. Those are awfully good photos.
Sincerely yours,
Theodore Roosevelt