sold Theodore Roosevelt Writes With Gratitude to Judge Jacob Trieber

President William McKinley appointed Jacob Trieber as a Federal judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas in 1900. Trieber thus became the first Jewish Federal judge in the United States. His appointment  was a miracle of no small proportions, considering he was an immigrant with a heavy foreign accent, of modest means, with no formal college or law school training, and came from a small town in rural Arkansas. Yet he became known nationwide for his judicial abilities and legal acumen, and was particularly noted for his courageous (and almost solitary) pro-civil rights decisions. He is the subject of the new book, “A?Rift in the Clouds”, about the efforts of three judges to read the Reconstruction Amendments to give blacks legal protection.

TR was to leave office on March 4, 1909, and Trieber wrote him a congratulatory letter for a job well done. Just three days before the end of his term, Roosevelt responded in this

Typed Letter Signed on White House letterhead, Washington, March 1, 1909, to Judge Trieber. “You have written me just the kind of letter it pleases and touches me to receive, especially coming from a man like you. Believe me, I appreciate it.”