[E1958-F]

https://edisondigital.rutgers.edu/folder/E1958-F

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Part Of: Edison General File Series -- 1919

[E1958-F] (E-19-58) Politics

This folder contains correspondence and other documents concerning local and national politics, as well as Edison's opinions on political issues. Among the items for 1919 is a letter from former (and future) U.S. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson regarding the commemoration of former president Theodore Roosevelt, who died on January 6. Also included is a telegram from U. S. senator and future president Warren G. Harding and other dignitaries requesting Edison to be an honorary member of an anti-Bolshevik committee. In addition, there are documents relating to the Federal Electric Railways Commission, established by the Wilson Administration in 1919 to deal with the precarious financial situation of numerous urban transit companies.

Other subjects mentioned in the documents include the adoption of the metric system, the Italian occupation of South Tyrol, the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, the Victory Loan drive, and the Longworth bill to restrict the importation of German chemicals. The correspondents include Edison associate Samuel Insull, Charles L. Parsons of the American Chemical Society, William H. Short of the League to Enforce Peace, financier and mining engineer William Boyce Thompson of the Roosevelt Memorial Association, President Wilson's longtime secretary Joseph P. Tumulty, and Owen D. Young of General Electric Co.

Approximately 60 percent of the documents have been selected. The unselected items include unsolicited requests for Edison's opinion or endorsement, marked for no answer or for a standard response declining to take a position on the issue; routine letters from members of Congress acknowledging Edison's form letter on the metric system; and items duplicating the information in the selected documents.

Related material regarding the League of Nations and Victory Loan drive can be found in E-19-14 (Charities and Loans).

Courtesy of Thomas Edison National Historical Park.

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