Mark Twain called Theodore Roosevelt the "most popular human being that has ever existed in the United States"; he also called him "far and away the worst president we have ever had." Twain made these observations in his autobiography in 1906 but ordered them embargoed for 100 years.

Roosevelt once remarked privately to a friend that he would like to see Twain "skinned alive." He dismissed Twain's anti-imperialism as part of the "silly, mock humanitarianism of the prattlers...