Rogers Estate 
                                 Hyde Park, N.Y. 
                                 August 24, 1940
 
The President                                               
White House                                                 
Washigton, D. C.
 
My dear Mr. President,
 
       May I first thank you for our invitation of last 
Tuesday, and particularly for the special interest you 
undertook in the sale of the estate? I should like to 
forestall the possibility of the entire estate being sold 
out from under me; of course, I have no legal way to 
prevent that being done without even so much as a
notification and chance to buy myself. I should like to
approach Edmund in regard to the possibility of buying,
if not just the small section on which lies the house,then
all the land including it and north of it (and west of Judge
Halperin's development). However, I wish to say nothing
without gaining your consent first, for you noted that the
information was not for public consumption, and I am not
aware of whether Ishould know of the pending transfer or not.
If not, I'll write him of a possible purchase in only a
general way, relating only to some "possible future sale"
of the Estate. If you have amoment for such personal matters,
let me know your opinion.
 
       I appreciated also your interest in Professor Carman 
and my American historical series. As I said at the time, it
is my belief that few men are better read in the period of the
Jeffersonian administration than yourself. I am sure that
no one could better handle such a volume, if you could
spare odd moments from affairs of state to undertake such a
project-which I think would appeal to you as historian
yourself. I rather think it would not take overmuch time;
the thirty volumes of the series run only 100 pages each,
though each is being done by a generally acknowledged
expert in the particular field it covers. I am sure the
project would recommend itself to you were you about to
free yourself of the burden of political life; even though
you have decided not to do so perhaps you will feel
inclined to undertake it.
 
       Sometime again when you are In Hyde Park and a little
less pressed than usual, I should like to outline for you
some of the aspects of the first volume of the biography - its
general approach and handling of the subject material, and
receive, should
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