ANS: President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909, handwritten note written as President and addressed to Patrick E. McKenna, longtime White House doorkeeper and Presidential confidant serving from 1903-1940. The note is dated March 3rd 1909, President Roosevelt's penultimate day in office, and reads: To P.E. McKenna / with all best wishes of Theodore Roosevelt / March 3rd 1909." This note may have accompanied a letter of recommendation given to McKenna by President Roosevelt on this day and which is transcribed in Albert Loren Cheney's publication PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF THE HOME LIFE OF THE LATE THEODORE ROOSEVELT AS SOLDIER, VICE PRESIDENT, AND PRESIDENT, IN RELATION TO OYSTER BAY (1919) and which reads: "The White House, Washington, March 3, 1909. To Whom It May Concern: P.E. McKenna has served me for five years as assistant door-keeper at the White House. He is absolutely honest, always willing and obliging. I trust him entirely and should certainly have kept him if I were going to continue as President. Theodore Roosevelt." Housed under glass in a carved, ebonized wood frame with green mat alongside a printed copy of a photograph of President Roosevelt. Sheet: 7 3/4" H x 5 1/4" W. Frame: Biographical note: McKenna, or 'Pat' as he was known to every President since the first Roosevelt brought him to the White House from Oyster Bay in 1903, served for thirty-seven years as doorkeeper to numerous Presidents. When informed of McKenna's death in July of 1940, then-current President Franklin Delano Roosevelt offered the following statement: "Because I have always thought of Pat McKenna as one of my oldest personal friends, I am grieved and shocked by his death. I had known him since the Administration of President Theodore Roosevelt and saw much of him in the Administration of President Wilson, and finding him here in March 1933 meant much toward making the task of the Presidency more easy. Nobody can ever quite replace him. At the door of many Presidents, he had come to know almost everybody who called at the executive offices during all these years. But this was more than a mere knowledge of faces-he knew the personal characteristics of practically every one prominent in public life during the last forty years. He was a shrewd judge of character and because he and I were such really good friends he was able to help me on many occasions in many ways. I shall miss him greatly." (Adapted from "Patrick M'Kenna, White House Aide, Doorkeeper to the President Since 1903, When Named by Theodore Roosevelt, Dies"; New York Times; July 2, 1940)

CONDITION: Excellent condition, with slight fading to ink.