Hail to the Chiefs Part XXVII: Here Come The Judge or Slow and Steady
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direcorrector at Hail to the Chiefs Part XXVII: Here Come The Judge or Slow and Steady
direcorrector at Hail to the Chiefs Part XXVII: Here Come The Judge or Slow and Steady Timing is everything. When it comes to his presidency, William Howard Taft has the misfortune in being about 20-30 years too late. Say he had followed Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford B. Hayes or Chester A. Arthur.....Taft would probably have a considerably better reputation. Instead Taft had the rare bad luck (and he had a LOT of rare bad luck....) to come between two of the "game changer" presidents. He was immediately after Theodore Roosevelt, and immediately before Woodrow Wilson. He and John Adams could have gotten together to commiserate.
Taft was also one of a number of presidents who, while he didn't have a particularly stellar presidency, had a great career before and after. (SEE ALSO: John and John Quincy Adams, Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter.)
William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, on September 15, 1851. He was the oldest son from his father's second marriage. His father, Alphonso Taft, was a well known community leader. (A large part of Taft's presidential museum is about various contributions the Taft clan have made to the Cincinnati community over the years.) His Massachusetts born mother, Louise Taft, was a big proponent of education, and was part of the Free Kindergarten movement in Cincinnati.
Taft was a big fan of fairy tales and Aesop's Fables. In his house was a fire place with tiles that showed scenes from the various stories. Taft's grandfather loved to tell him the stories. Little Taft's favorite of the stories was "The Tortoise and the Hare" which I thought was very appropriate. "Slow and steady wins the race" was definitely his approach.
Taft was also one of a number of presidents who, while he didn't have a particularly stellar presidency, had a great career before and after. (SEE ALSO: John and John Quincy Adams, Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter.)
William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, on September 15, 1851. He was the oldest son from his father's second marriage. His father, Alphonso Taft, was a well known community leader. (A large part of Taft's presidential museum is about various contributions the Taft clan have made to the Cincinnati community over the years.) His Massachusetts born mother, Louise Taft, was a big proponent of education, and was part of the Free Kindergarten movement in Cincinnati.
Taft was a big fan of fairy tales and Aesop's Fables. In his house was a fire place with tiles that showed scenes from the various stories. Taft's grandfather loved to tell him the stories. Little Taft's favorite of the stories was "The Tortoise and the Hare" which I thought was very appropriate. "Slow and steady wins the race" was definitely his approach.
For college Taft went to Yale and was a member of the Skull and Bones society. (So were both President Bushes.) If you go to his house, there is a book that lists all of the members from the beginning up to 1930.
Taft returned to Cincinnati to go to law school, and later began his law practice there. Before long, he was appointed as a judge.
From 1901 to 1903 Taft was the Governor-General of the Philippines. Now if any of you POTUS peeps can shed light on how on earth a man goes from being a judge one day, to running the Philippines the next...please fill me in. I figure it partially has to do with the fact that McKinley, a fellow Ohio native, was the one to initially make the appointment. When Teddy Roosevelt was president he was so delighted with Taft's work in the Philippines he commented: "If only there were three of you!" So he could keep one in the Philippines, one on the Supreme Court, and one as Secretary of War. Roosevelt later did make Taft his Secretary of War.
Taft later did become Roosevelt's Secretary of War, and the two men became good friends. Taft was so agreeable that Roosevelt mistakenly thought they saw eye to eye on just about every issue. Taft privately wrote letters that proved otherwise. He was considerably more conservative than Roosevelt.
Roosevelt hand-picked Taft to be his successor. Usually the commentary on Taft is that while he rather would have been on the Supreme Court, his wife bullied him into accepting the presidential nomination. However, according to to the Lewis Gould biography, Taft didn't exactly lack in ambition himself.
Still, from the get go, the whole process of campaigning and then selecting cabinet members, was clearly not a good fit. He procrastinated a lot. He also famously put on a lot of weight because of the stress, gaining 70 pounds and ballooning to over 300 pounds. Now Taft had never exactly been petite. He once sent a telegram to Elihu Root commenting "Went horseback riding today. Feeling fine." Root cabled back "How was the horse?" However, the fact that Taft was at the heaviest weight of his life during his presidency, was evidence of just how unhappy he was in that office.
A lot of Taft's administration was rather bumbling and full of gaffes. He unsuccessfully tried to roll back the tariffs. He did successfully see through the 16th amendment which allowed for a federal income tax. (Interesting legacy as you don't usually associate new taxes with conservatives.) He did successfully have policies that were more pro-business, and anti-conservationist than Roosevelt, and caused Roosevelt to hit the ceiling when he returned from his African safari. The two men never totally recovered from the rift that had grown between them.
Taft's appointments to the Supreme Court, surprisingly, were actually rather lackluster. Although it was more than one of this bunch that would later do battle with FDR's attempts to pack the court, 20 years later. Taft avoided giving the position of Chief Justice to the younger Charles Hughes, as he wanted the opportunity to have the job himself later.
Taft was also known to make rather awkward statements. (I was reminded a bit of George W. Bush.) For example, in 1910 he addressed the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Now it was bad enough that he decided this was the place to announce that he used to be for women's suffrage, but now he was against it. His reasoning was "that Hottentots or any uneducated and altogether unintelligent class is fitted for self-government is a theory I wholly dissent from." In other words, giving women the vote implied that women were fit to rule the country....and they were too dumb and uneducated to be fit for such a role, just like the Pygmy tribe in Africa. Way to insult 50% of the American population AND the pygmies at the same time!
Taft also was plagued by just sheer bad luck. The ultimate one was when his favorite aide decided to spend a bit of time in Europe. To return to the United States, he opted to take the Titanic.....guess how that turned out.
One side note....in the third year of Taft's administration, on February 6, 1911...Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois. When Reagan died, George W. Bush was president. This is just to give you an idea of the momentous changes that Reagan experienced during his life time.
Taft's presidency included a series of firsts and lasts. He was the first president to toss out the first pitch at a baseball game. He was the first president to have his own car. He was the last president to bring his own cow to the White House. The cow's name was Pauline Wayne. My favorite part of the Lewis Gould biography was when he commented that she was milked "in a stately Wayne manner."
The 1912 election was brutal for Taft. It is the only time in American history that we've had a current president, a former president, and a future president all in the same race. It is also the only time that the incumbent came in third in the race.
Taft was ultimately relieved to be out of office. He pretty quickly lost all the weight he put on while president. Initially Taft thought he would return to his law practice. However he realized there would be a huge conflict of interest as he had appointed quite a few of the judges that he would be working with. Instead, he opted to teach at his alma mater Yale for a while. Then during World War I he was co-chairman of the National War Labor Board, and collaborated with President Wilson.
Taft somewhat healed the wounds with Roosevelt. When Roosevelt died in 1919, Taft was the very last to leave the grave site after the funeral.
In 1920, Taft finally achieved his lifelong goal and became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court....the only former president to do so. This also made him the only former president to swear in other presidents for their inauguration including: Harding, Coolidge and Hoover. Taft found that the Supreme Court had an enormous backlog of cases. His biggest innovation to the Court was enacting the policy that the Supreme Court could select which cases to see. This was one of the happiest times of his life. He commented "In my present life, I don't remember that I ever was president." Taft had 10 years on the Supreme Court. Due to health reasons, he resigned in 1930 and died a month later.
Initially I thought I was going to have problems finding a pop culture reference to William Howard Taft. However, thankfully there was the short lived series "Histeria" that came up with this little gem.