SOURCE: "Theodore Roosevelt and Edwin Arlington Robinson: A Common…," in The Personalist, Vol. 49, No. 3, Summer, 1968, pp. 331-50.

In the following review, Burton discusses a likeness he perceives in the attitudes and ideas of Roosevelt and the poet Edward Arlington Robinson.

Theodore Roosevelt's chance reading in 1905 of Edwin Arlington Robinson's The Children of the Night was the occasion of a well-known episode in the lives of both men. The President liked what he read in Robinson, though he had to admit there was that in the poet's work which eluded him, and when he learned of his dire financial need provided a position for him at the New York Customs Office. The job was an ideal sinecure. The pay proved sufficient for a modest way of life and Robinson was required to spend no hours at his desk. Despite some pressing family obligations he was free, really for the...