The Hill News

President Obama has occasionally reacted to correspondence by sending constituents a personal check, according to a new book.

“A few times during his presidency, Obama admitted, he had written a personal check or made a phone call on the writer’s behalf, believing that it was his only way to ensure a fast result,” The Washington Post’s Eli Saslow writes in his newly released Ten Letters: The Stories Americans Tell Their President.

“It’s not something I should advertise, but it has happened,” Obama told Saslow, in an excerpt of the book. “Some of these letters you read and you say, ‘Gosh, I really want to help this! person, and I may not have the tools to help them right now. And then you start thinking about the fact that for every one person that wrote describing their story, there might be another hundred thousand going through the same thing. So there are times when I’m reading the letters and I feel pained that I can’t do more, faster, to make a difference in their lives.”

{mosads}In 2009, on his second day in office, Obama requested that the head of White House Correspondence select and deliver to him every day 10 letters that were broadly representative of the daily correspondence. Obama would respond to two or three letters every day in his own hand.

"My staff is very evenhanded, because about half of these letters call me an idiot," Obama told Saslow.

Obama kept the habit, now well into his first term, and Saslow reports in his book that the letters were delivered to Obama in a purple folder six days a week, even when Obama is away from ! the White House. The White House receives about 20,000 letters! or emai l every day.

The White House cooperated with Saslow on his book, which was released last week. The book includes details from the stories of many of the letter-writers who sent letters and received an answer from the president.