- Feb 24, 1905: Yamashita is invited to the White House for an exhibition match, Roosevelt makes some remarks on the difference between Judo and American style Wrestling, and the role of strength in combat:
Yesterday afternoon we had Professor Yamashita up here to wrestle with Grant. It was very interesting, but of course jiu jitsu end our wrestling are so far apart that it is difficult to make any comparison between them. wrestling is simply a sport with rules almost as conventional as those of tennis, while jiujitsu is really meant for practice in killing or disabling your adversary. In consequence, Grant did not know what to do except to put Yamashita on his back, and Yamashita was perfectly content to be on his back. Inside of a minute Yamashita had choked Grant and inside of two minutes more he got an elbow hold on him that would have enabled him to break his arm; so that there is no question but that he could have put Grant out. So far this made it evident that the jiu jitsu man could handle the ordinary wrestler. But Grant, in the actual wrestling and throwing was about as good as the Japanese, and he was so much stronger that he evidently hurt and wore out the Japanese. With a little practice in the art I am sure that one of our big wrestlers or boxers, simply because of his greatly superior strength, would be able to
throwkill any of those Japanese, who though very good men for their inches and pounds are altogether too small to hold their own against big, powerful,quick men who are as well trained.
- Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Kermit Roosevelt, February 24, 1905
