WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT
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| William H. Taft - "Good Times," Cleveland : Allied Printing Trades Council, circa 1908 |
In William Howard Taft the
Republican National Convention has nominated for the Presidency a man
exceptionally equipped, not only by nature and training, but by experience and
achievement, to perform the delicate and arduous duties of the greatest office
in the gift of any people. For nearly thirty years he has given himself with
single-minded devotion to the public service. He has displayed throughout a broad
grasp of affairs, a literally dauntless courage, an unshakable integrity, a
quick and all embracing sympathy, a deep and abiding sense of justice, a
marvelous insight into human nature, a sure and unwavering judgment, executive
ability of the highest order, and a limitless capacity for hard work. In all
the years of its history, the Republican party has never selected as its leader
in a National Campaign a man so tried beforehand, and so amply proved equal to
the task.
A FAMILY
OF JURISTS.
Mr. Taft comes of a family
distinguished in the law and the public service. The first American Tafts came
of the English yeomanry, transplanted across the Atlantic by the great upheaval
for conscience's sake which peopled New England with its sturdy stock. In this
country they turned to the study and practice of the law. Peter Taft was both a
maker and an interpreter of laws, having served as a member of the Vermont
legislature, and afterwards as a judge. Alphonso Taft, son of Peter, was
graduated from Yale College, and then went out to the Western Reserve to
practice law. He settled in Cincinnati, and it was at Mt. Auburn, a suburb of
that city, on September 15, 1857, that his son, William Howard Taft, first
became a presidential possibility.
The boys grew up in an
atmosphere of earnest regard for public duty too little known in these days of
the colossal and engrossing material development of the country. His father
earned distinction in the service of city and state and nation, going from the
Superior bench, to which he had been elected unanimously, to the place in
Grant's cabinet now held by the son, then, as Attorney General, to the
Department of Justice, and finally into the diplomatic service, as minister
first to Austria and then to Russia. His mother, who was Miss Louise M. Torrey,
also came of that staunch New England stock with whom conscience is the arbiter
of action and duty performed the goal of service.
His Mother's Influence.
It was her express command
that sent him away from her last fall when both knew that she was entering upon
the last stage of her life. He had promised the Filipinos that he would go to
Manila and in person formally open their Assembly. It was to be their first
concrete experience in self-government, and he, more than any other man, had
made it possible. If he should not keep his promise there was danger that the
suspicious Filipinos would impute his failure to sinister motives, to
indifference or altered purpose, with result vastly unfortunate to them and to
us. Mr. Taft saw all that very clearly, yet in view of his mother's health he
would have remained at home. But she forbade. She said his duty lay to the
people he had started on the path to liberty, and although it involved what
each thought to be the final parting she commanded him to go. He went and
before he could return his mother had passed away.
Much was to be expected of
a boy of such parentage, and young Taft fulfilled the expectation. He began by
growing big physically. He has a tremendous frame. The cartoonists have made a
false presentment of him familiar to the country by drawing him always as a
mountain of flesh. But if they had gone to the same extreme of leanness, and
still honestly portrayed his frame they would have represented a man above the
average weight.
AT
COLLEGE.
Of course he went to Yale.
His father had been the first alumnus elected to the corporation, and when
young Taft had completed his preparatory course at the public schools of
Cincinnati he went to New Haven for his college training. He was a big,
rollicking, good natured boy, who liked play but still got fun out of work. He
did enough in athletics to keep his 225 pounds of muscle in good condition, but
gave most of his time to his studies. When the class of '78 was graduated Taft
was its salutatorian, having finished second among 120. He was also elected
class orator by the class. He was then not quite 21.
He went back to Cincinnati
and began the study of law in his father's office, at the same time doing court
reporting for the newspaper owned by his half-brother, Charles P. Taft. His
salary at first was $6 a week. He did his work so well, however, that Murat
Halstead, editor of the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, employed him to work for
that paper, at the increased salary of $25 a week.
While he was doing this he was keeping up his
studies, taking the course at the Cincinnati Law School, from which he was
graduated in 1880, dividing first honors with another student, and being
admitted to the bar soon afterward.
HIS
RESPECTS
That fall there occurred
one of the most celebrated and characteristic incidents in his life. A man
named Rose was then running a blackmailing paper in Cincinnati. He had the
reputation of being a dangerous man. He had been a prize fighter, and was usually
accompanied by a gang of roughs ready to assault any whom he wanted punished.
Alphonso Taft had been the unsuccessful candidate for governor at that
election, and Rose's paper slanderously assailed him. For once young Taft
forgot his judicial temperament and legal training, and instead of setting the
law on the blackmailer he marched down to his office and gave Rose a terrific
thrashing.
Rose quit Cincinnati that
night and his paper never appeared again. Young Taft had had his first
spectacular fight, and it was in behalf of somebody else.
It is not the purpose of
this sketch to attempt a detailed biography of Mr. Taft. It merely seeks by a
discussion of a few of the more important events of his life to show what
manner of man he is. They reveal him as a student of application and ability; a
man with an abiding sense of justice, slow to wrath, but terrible in anger:
courageous, aggressively honest and straightforward; readier to take up
another's cause than his own. This is a foundation on which experience may
build very largely, and that is what it has done for Taft.
THE CALL
TO PUBLIC OFFICE.
He was hardly out of his
boyhood when he was called to public office, and in most of the years since
then he has devoted himself to the public service. First he was assistant
prosecuting attorney of Hamilton County, under Miller Outcalt, now one of the
leading lawyers of Ohio. In 1881 he became collector of internal revenue for
the first Ohio district, and demonstrated the same ability in business that he
had shown in the law. A year later he resigned that office and went back to the
practice of law, with his father's old partner, H. P. Lloyd. In 1884 he became
the junior counsel of a Bar Committee to constitute testament proceedings
against T. C. Campbell, whose methods of practicing law had brought on the
burning of the Hamilton County Court House in Cincinnati. Though technically
unsuccessful, Mr. Taft made a good reputation from his conduct of this matter
and Campbell was driven from Cincinnati. In 1885 he became assistant county
solicitor. Two years later Governor Foraker appointed him Judge of the Superior
Court, to succeed Judson Harmon, who had resigned to enter President
Cleveland's cabinet.
In 1886 Judge Taft married
Miss Helen Herron, daughter of Hon. John W. Herron, of Cincinnati. They have
three children. Robert Alphonso, a student at Yale,
Helen, a student at Bryn Mawr, and Charles Phelps, 2d, who attends the public
schools in Washington.
HIS
JUDICIAL CAREER BEGUN.
His appointment as Judge of
the Superior Court was the beginning of the judicial career which was Taft's
ambition, and for which he was so eminently fitted. He rnade such a record as a
judge that at the close of his appointed term he was triumphantly elected for
another term. But already he had attracted attention outside his state, and he
had served but two years of the five for which he had been elected when
President Harrison asked him to take the difficult post of Solicitor General of
the United States. This was an office of the utmost importance, involving not
only wide learning and tremendous application, but the power of clear and
forceful presentation of argument. Two of the cases which he conducted as
solicitor general involved questions of vital importance to the entire country.
The first grew out of the seal fisheries controversy with Great Britain. Mr.
Taft won against such eminent counsel as Joseph H. Choate who is widely
recognized as a leader of the American bar. The other was a tariff case in
which the law was attacked on the ground that Speaker Reed had counted a quorum
when the bill passed the House. That, too, he won. It was during his term as
solicitor general that Mr. Taft met Theodore Roosevelt, then civil service
commissioner, and began the friendship which has continued and grown ever since
and which has had such far-reaching influence upon the lives of both men.
ON FEDERAL
BENCH.
Mr. Taft's record as
solicitor general so clearly proved his fitness for the bench that after three
years in Washington he was sent back to Ohio as judge of the Sixth Federal
Circuit, a post generally recognized as a preliminary step to the Supreme
Court, which was then the goal of his ambition.
It was during his seven
years on the federal bench that Mr. Taft's qualities as a judge became known
throughout the country. He was called upon then to decide some of the most
important cases that have ever been tried in the federal courts, in the conduct
of which he established an enviable reputation for learning, courage and
fairness— three essential attributes of a great jurist. His power of
application and his ability to turnoff enormous masses of work received ample
demonstration during this time. It was in this period of his service that he
rendered the labor decisions which have made him famous as an upright and
fearless judge. In his treatment of both labor and capital he showed that here
was a judge who knew no distinction of parties when they appeared as litigants
before him. He voiced the law as he knew it and the right as he saw it, no matter ^here the blow fell or
whom it struck. If sometimes the decisions went against what organized labor at
that time believed to be its cause, it must not be forgotten that no clearer or
broader statement of the true rights of labor has ever been made than in some
of his judicial utterances. Lawyers conducting litigation in other courts on
behalf of labor unions have often cited these decisions of Judge Taft in
support of their contentions. Neither should it be forgotten that one of the
most important and far reaching of all his judgments was that against the
Addyston Pipe Company, in which for the first time the Sherman anti-trust law
was made a living, vital force for the curbing and punishment of monopoly. When
this case reached the Supreme Court, Mr. Taft received the distinguished and
unusual honor of having his decision quoted in full and handed down as part of
the opinions of the high court which sustained him at every point.
PIONEERING
THE ROOSEVELT POLICY.
The Addyston Pipe decision
marked the beginning of the struggle for federal control of interstate
corporations which in the later years has come to be known as the
"Roosevelt policy." Mr. Taft in an address to the American Bar
Association at Detroit, in the summer of 1895, had enunciated the principle on
which President Roosevelt has made his great fight for the suppression of
monopoly and the abolition of special privilege. Thus Mr. Taft pioneered the
way for the "Roosevelt policy."
BLAZING
THE PHILIPPINE TRAIL.
Since the settlement of the
reconstruction question no more delicate or fateful problem has confronted
American statesmanship than that of the Philippines. The sudden pitching of
over-sea territory into our possession as a result of the war with Spain,
created a situation not only unexpected but entirely without precedent. There
was no guide for our statesmen. The path had to be hewed out new from the
beginning. There was no crystalization of opinion among the American people as
to what should be done with the Philippines. A considerable element was
vigorously opposed to retaining them, but the vast majority demanded the
maintenance of American sovereignty there. Among these, at first, the desire
was undoubtedly due to the glamour of aggrandizement. The possibility of wealth
somewhere beyond the skyline always catches the imagination, ana there can be
no question that the great mass of the people moved, without serious thought of
the consequences, toward American exploitation of the islands.
But even at that early day there were a few—a
very few—among the leaders of American thought and action, who saw clearly the
responsibility thrust upon the country by the adventitious possession of the
Philippines, and determined to meet it fully, no matter what clamor cf
opposition might arise. Among these President McKinley was one. Mr. Taft was
another. Mr. Taft had been opposed to taking the islands. He was opposed to
retaining them. More than all he opposed their exploitation for American
benefit. He believed that the Philippines belonged to the Filipinos, and should
be developed in the interest of their own people.
SHOULDERING THE "WHITE
MAN'S BURDEN."
He saw the possibility of
lifting a feeble, ignorant people into the light of liberty and setting them
upon the path to intelligent, efficient self-government. That possibility
reconciled him to the continuance of American authority over the islands, for
none saw more clearly than he the chaos certain to result from immediate
independence for the Filipinos, with its inevitable and speedy end in complete
and hopeless subjection to some other power. Therefore when President McKinley
asked him to go to Manila and undertake the difficult and thankless task of
starting the Filipinos upon their true course, he sacrificed the judicial
career which was his life's ambition and shouldered the "White Man's
Burden." It was in March, 1900, that he received his appointment as
chairman of the Philippine Commission.
Not many Americans have
ever comprehended thoroughly the size of Mr. Taft's undertaking, or the full
meaning of his achievement. Through a bungle in our first dealings with
Aguinaldo and the Filipinos the entire native population of the islands had
come to believe, with some reason, that the Americans were their enemies and
had betrayed them. Mr. Taft arrived in Manila to find a people subdued by force
of arms, but unanimously hostile, sullen and suspicious. They were still
struggling, with the bitterness of despair, against the power in which they all
saw only the hand of the oppressor.
OVERCOMING THE BARRIER
BETWEEN EAST AND WEST.
Moreover, their leaders had been inoculated
with the belief that between west and east there is an impassable barrier which
will always prevent the Occidental from understanding and sympathizing with the
Oriental. The experience of generations has confirmed them in that belief. The
only government in their knowledge was tyranny. The only education in their
history was deceit. The only tradition they possessed was hatred of oppression,
made concrete for them by their experience with western domination.
That was what Mr. Taft had
to face, and in three years he had overcome and changed it all. He did it by
the persuasive power of the most winning personality the Filipinos had ever
known. He met them on their own level. He lived with them, ate
with them, drank with them, danced with them, and he showed them that here was
an Occidental who could read and sympathize with the Oriental heart. He gave
them a new conception of justice, and they saw with amazement that it was
even-handed, respecting neither person nor condition, a great leveler,
equalizing all before the law. They saw Mr. Taft understanding them better than
they had understood themselves, comprehending their problems more wisely than
their own leaders had done, and standing all the time like a rock solidly for
their interests. They saw him opposed by almost all his countrymen in their
islands, denounced and assailed with the utmost vehemence and venom by
Americans simply because he steadfastly resisted American exploitation and
persisted in his declaration that the Philippines should be for the Filipinos.
They saw him laboring day and night in their behalf and facing death itself
with cheerful resignation in order to carry on their cause. It was a revelation
to them. It was something beyond their previous ken, outside of all their
experience, their education and their tradition. It convinced them.
A
REVELATION TO THE FILIPINOS.
Mr. Taft gave them concrete
examples of disinterestedness and good faith, which they could not fail to
comprehend. He gave them schools and the opportunity of education, one of the
dearest wishes of the whole people. No man who was not in the Philippines in
the early days of the American occupation will ever understand thoroughly with
what pitiful eagerness the Filipino people desired to learn. Men, women and
children, white haired grandfathers and grandmothers craved above everything
the opportunity to go to school and receive instruction in the simplest
rudiments. It is difficult to tell how deeply that eager desire touched Mr.
Taft and how earnestly he responded to it.
But education was only a
beginning. Mr. Taft gave the Filipinos the opportunity to own their own homes.
It was another concrete example of simple justice. When they saw him
negotiating for the Friar lands, securing for the Filipinos the right to buy
those lands on easy terms, it went home to the dullest among them that he was
working unselfishly in their behalf. And they saw his justice in their courts.
For the first time in all their experience the poorest and humblest Filipino
found himself able to secure an even-handed honest decision, without purchase
and without influence.
Even that was not all. They
saw Mr. Taft literally and faithfully keeping his promise and calling Filipinos
to share in their own government, not merely in the subordinate and lowly
places which they had been able to purchase from their old masters, but in the
highest and most responsible posts. They saw men of their race called to membership
in the commission, in the supreme court, • and in all the other branches of their government. And they
believed the promise of even wider experience of self-government to come.
AN
UNPARALLELED ACHIEVEMENT.
It was a practical
demonstration of honesty and good faith such as the Philippines has never
known. It was a showing of sympathy, justice and comprehension which could not
be resisted. Conviction followed it inevitably. The whole people knew—because
they saw—that the Philippines were to be maintained for the Filipinos, and they
recognized their own unfitness for the full responsibilities of independent
self-government, and cheerfully set themselves to the task of preparation.
That is the achievement of
Mr. Taft in the Philippines. It has scarcely a parallel in history. What it
cost him he paid without question or complaint. He had given up his judicial
career when he went to Manila. But three times in the course of his service for
the Filipinos the opportunity to re-enter it came to him, each time with an
offer of a place on the supreme court which had been his life-long goal. Each
time he refused it. Not even President Roosevelt understood the call to Mr.
Taft from the Filipinos, and when he offered a supreme court justiceship to Mr.
Taft he accompanied it with almost a command. But Mr. Taft declined. He saw
clearly his duty lay to the people whom he had led to believe in him as the
personification of American justice and good faith, and he made the President see
it too. How the Filipinos felt was shown when on hearing of the danger that Mr.
Taft might be called away from Manila, they flocked in thousands about his
residence and begged him not to go. When ultimately he did leave the islands it
was only to come home as Secretary of War, in which office he could continue
his direction of Philippine affairs and make sure that there should be no
deviation from the successful line of policy he had marked out.
Nearly four years have elapsed since the
foregoing chapter on the life of William Howard Taft was
written.
What it conveyed of
prophecy has been fulfilled; what it spoke in eulogy has
been vindicated. At the close of his first four-year term President Taft has
met the expectations of his people; his sympathies have broadened, his
experiences ripened. Malevolent attack at no time undermined his determination
and courage to pursue the right; temptations to cater to hollow popular
applause at the expense of the general welfare left him unmoved. Bravely,
steadfastly and patiently he has performed the duties of his high office, ever
seeking the light that pointed the path to progress and reform. And when the
Republican National Convention of 1912, on June 22, gave him the renomination
he had so well earned he again held aloft the banner of social and material
betterment of all the people, which four years before was so wisely entrusted to his strong
hands. And in those four years the progress, development and augmented
prosperity of the American people constitutes the important chapter that is to
be added to President Taft's biography, a chapter upon which are based his
claims to greatness, now and in the future to be acknowledged by the people
whom he has served so well.
In the wealth of altruistic
achievement no record of American Presidents has ever exceeded that of
President Taft, and that record, details of which are supplied in other chapters
of this book, can be touched upon here only at its highest peaks. Upon that
record the Republican party, going again before the American people, will ask a
vote of confidence in the high-principled American statesman, whose courage,
tenacity of purpose, integrity and smiling efficiency have made it possible.
If President Taft had done
no more than to usher in an era of calm enforcement of the law, where rich
malefactor stands on a level with the criminal poor, he would yet be acclaimed
by historians as Taft, the Just. If he had done no more than to write the stamp
of his disapproval on the Wool, Steel and Free List measures, to register his
unyielding opposition to the recall-of-judges monstrosity—all in the face of
warnings that the acts in question went to his very political life—he would yet
be regarded as a man of unflinching courage, as a Doer of the Right as God had
given him the light to see it. And the same calm courage marked his course in
the battle he waged for the cause of peace, when he endeavored to place the
United States in the vanguard of nations who are striving for a. solution of
all international problems without a resort to the sword—endeavors in which he
was thwarted by the opposition of Democrats and personal representatives of Theodore
Roosevelt in the United States Senate.
Great as were these
achievements, thus lightly touched upon, they constitute but a small part of
the record as it is written. The highest court in the land has given to the
people an interpretation of the Sherman law, under which the great corporations
of the nation now stand ready to square their operations to the terms of the
law. The President's recommendation that future revisions of the tariff be
taken up schedule by schedule, following the report of a non-partisan tariff
commission, which was at first decried, is now accepted by national leaders
irrespective of their political affiliations. The Payne law has maintained the
prosperity of the country, providing substantial revision downward, yet
producing sufficient revenue, thanks to its many wise provisions, including the
imposition of an excise tax on corporations, to turn a large Roosevelt deficit
into an equally large Taft surplus.
There is too much in the record of President
Taft's first term in office to permit anything more than an index of it to
appear In a chapter devoted to his career. It includes government victories in
the Standard Oil and Tobacco Trust cases; fearless enforcement of the Sherman
Act; the abrogation of the passport treaty with Russia; the approaching completion of the Panama Canal, without hint of scandal; the
admission of Arizona and New Mexico to Statehood; the exercise of rigid ecenomy
in Government Departments, at no sacrifice of efficiency, with attendant
reduction of estimates and appropriations, and the placing, for the first time
in history, of the Postoffice Department on a self-supporting basis; the
carrying on of military maneuvers along the Mexican border, that made for the
greater safety of Americans on both sides of the borders and that preserved
American neutrality. That record includes the reorganization of the army,
providing for unprecedented mobility of troops, and for the maintenance and
extension of the power of the Navy as an international agency for peace and a properly
equipped guardian of American interests under the provisions of the Monroe
Doctrine; the reorganization of the customs service, with its attendant
elimination of corruption, exposure and punishment of frauds, and recovery of
millions of dollars; the creation of a Bureau of Mines; the successful issue of
workmen's compensation act litigation in the Supreme Court, leading system of
river and harbor appropriation; the further advancement of the cause of
employers' liability legislation; the negotiation and ratification of a treaty
with Japan which changed troubled and tense relations into those of undisputed
amity; the negotiation of treaties with Nicaragua and Honduras, making for
permanent peace. Postal savings banks have been established and parcels post is
on the way. Reciprocity with Canada, approved by the American Congress, was
rejected by the Canadian electorate, who saw in it a greater advantage to the
farmers of the United States than to the farmers of our neighbor to the North.
Judicial appointments were taken out of politics and non-political methods were
made successful in the taking of the Thirteenth Census. The Income Tax
amendment has been sent to the States for ratification and approval.
Conservation policies have been placed on a real working basis. The railroads
of the country have been made agencies for the greatest good and were compelled
to abandon the project to increase rates without submitting them to the
Interstate Commerce Commission for approval. China was opened to American commerce
and finance on terms of equality with the other powers of the world. A boiler
inspection law was enacted, greater liberality was exercised toward veterans of
the Civil War, the administration of law was reformed in important particulars,
recommendations were submitted looking to a revision of the National Currency
that will make panics impossible in the future. Bucket shop and get-rich-quick
concerns were crushed out of existence, and White Slavery and Peonage have
become, in a measure, problems of the past.
Pages on pages could yet be written, and leave
the history of those four years of Taftian achievement incomplete. What is here
presented serves not even as a complete index, but it will point the way to
those who would seek further. It points the record upon which the party presents
the claims of William Howard Taft to
the American people in November.
THE BIRTH OF A NATION.
What is the result? The
birth of a nation. The great, powerful American people, through the compelling
agency of Mr. Taft, has paused ever so slightly in its triumphant onward march,
to stoop down and lift up a feeble, ignorant and helpless people and set it on
the broad highway to liberty. Vaguely, uncertainly, not comprehending clearly
just what it was doing, not understanding always fully either the object or the
means of accomplishment, but its heart right, and submitting confidently to the
leadership of a man in wihom it trusted implicitly, this nation has assisted in
a new birth of freedom for a lowly and oppressed people. To William Howard Taft belongs
the lion's share of the credit. Not often is it given to one man to do such
work for humanity. Seldom is such altruism as his displayed. Many other honors
have come to him; many others will yet come. Among them all none will be of
greater significance or of more lasting value than his work for the Filipinos.
SECRETARY OF WAR.
It is not important here to
discuss in detail Mr. Taft's administration of the War Department sine* he
succeeded Elihu Root as Secretary of War on February 1, 1904. He has been at
the head of it during the years of its greatest range of activity. He is not
merely Secretary of the Army, as almost all his predecessors were. He is
Secretary of the Colonies. All matters of the utmost importance affecting every
one of the over-sea possessions of the United States come under his direction.
The affairs of the army alone have often proved sufficient to occupy the whole
attention of an able secretary. Mr. Taft has had to handle not only those and
the Philippine and Cuban business, but to direct the construction of the Panama
Canal as well. And at not infrequent intervals he has been called on to
participate in the direction of other weighty affairs of government. He has
been the general adviser of President Roosevelt and has been called into
consultation on every important matter which has required governmental action.
The administration of canal
affairs has required in a high degree that quality described as executive
ability. The building of a canal is a tremendous enterprise, calling constantly
for the exercise of sound business judgment. In it Mr. Taft has displayed in
ripened proportions the abilities he foreshadowed when solicitor general and
collector of internal
BUILDING
THE CANAL.
When Mr. Taft became
Secretary of War this country had just taken possession of the canal zone,
under treaty with the republic of Panama, and of the old canal property,
including the Panama railroad, by purchase from the French company. The work
was all to do. The country expected the dirt to fly at once. The newspapers and
periodicals were full of cartoons representing Uncle Sam in long boots with a
spade on his shoulder, striding down to the isthmus to begin digging. But
before there could be any excavation there was a tremendous task to meet. First
of all the isthmus must be changed from a disease breeding pest-hole to a place
where Americans could live and work in safety. The canal zone must be cleaned
up, mosquitoes stamped out and the place made sweet and healthy. Habitations
must be constructed for many thousands of workmen and their families. The
cities of Panama and Colon, at the terminal of the canal, must be made
thoroughly sanitary and supplied with water and sewers. An organization for the
work of canal construction must be perfected and millions of dollars' worth of
machinery and supplies must be purchased and transported to the isthmus.
All these things, however,
were of a purely business character. It required only time and ability to
handle them properly. But there was another matter to be taken care of before
these could be undertaken, and it was of decidedly different nature. The
Hay-Varilla treaty with Panama had secured to the United States all the rights
necessary for complete control of the canal zone, and it became of the utmost
importance to insure the maintenance of friendly relations with the people of
the isthmus republic. It would certainly greatly increase the ordinary
difficulties of building the canal if our people had to encounter the
hostilities of the Panamanians.
Here was a problem largely
similar to that met by Mr. Taft in the Philippines, and calling for the
exercise of the same qualities of tact, sympathy, justice and patience which he
had exhibited in the Far Blast.
It became his task to
convince the Panamanian people and government that the United States had not
gone to the isthmus to build a rival state instead of a canal. As head of the
War Department, and the superior of the Canal Commission, he has conducted all
affairs of the original treaty, and has succeeded in keeping our relations with
the isthmus uniformly pleasant. Always, at least once a year, he has made a
trip to the canal zone and examined affairs there with his own eyes. He but
recently returned from the isthmus, the President having sent him there to
settle a number of questions which required his personal consideration on the
ground. Perhaps some conception of his responsibilities on the isthmus may be
had from the fact that since the actual work of canal building began there has
been spent on it upward of $80,000,000, and every dollar of that expenditure
required and received his approval.
REAL
SELF-GOVERNMENT FOR CUBA.
Aside from the Philippines
and the Canal the greatest call that has been made upon Mr. Taft since he
became Secretary of War came from Cuba. This was a case largely similar to the
Philippine problem. The American people have so long imbibed the theory and
practice of self government with their mothers' milk that they have developed a
tendency to believe any people fitted for it who desire it. To us liberty is
self government, but to many a people with neither experience nor tradition of
anything but practical autocracy self-government is only license. So it was
with the Cubans. When our intervention had freed that island from the Spanish
yoke we deemed it sufficient insurance of successful government for the Cubans
to require them to adopt a constitution before we turned the island over to
them. We ignored the fact that Cuba had no experience of constitutions or
understanding of their functions. So when Cuba had conformed to our requirement
we sailed away from Havana and left her to work out her own salvation unaided
and untaught.
The result of that folly
was inevitable and not long delayed. The Cubans having adopted a constitution
they had not the slightest idea of what to do with it. They proceeded to govern
under the only system of which they had any knowledge. The proclamation of the
President took the place of the old royal decree. He created by his fiat the
departments of government which should have been established by law of Congress
under authority of the Constitution. Freedom in the American sense was unknown
in Cuba.
ORDER OUT
OF CHAOS.
The experiment was aimed
toward chaos and its expectation was quickly realized. In September, 1906, the
United States had to intervene again, and the task fell on Mr. Taft. Fortunate
it was both for the United States and Cuba that it was so. With his experience
of the Filipino as a guide and the magnetism of his personality as a lever, Mr.
Taft placated the warring factions and secured peaceable intervention. Then he
devised and set up a provisional government which all the Cubans accepted.
It was the intention then
to maintain the government only long enough to give the Cubans a fair election
at which they might select their own government by full and free expression of
their own will. But almost immediately the provisional government discovered
the fundamental mistake made by the earlier American administration. It
"found that the Cubans had been attempting to administer a government
which never had been organized and existed only by virtue of the President's
will. Patiently the provisional government set to work, under the direction of
Mr. Taft, to provide the organization under the fundamental
law which the Cubans had never known was the essential of successful
self-government. The work is now nearing completion, and when next the
Americans quit Havana it will be after turning over to the Cubans a government
machine properly established and fully equipped, whose operation they have been
taught to understand and control. Thus, to two peoples has Mr. Taft been called
upon to give instruction in practical self-government.
The character of Mr. Taft
is the resultant of strongly contrasting forces. He is a man who laughs and
fights. From his boyhood good nature and good humor have been the traits which
always received notice first. But all the time he has been capable of a
splendid wrath, which now and then has blazed out, under righteous provocation,
to the utter consternation and.undoing of its object. Because he is always
ready to laugh, and has a great roar of enjoyment to signify his appreciation
of the humorous, men who have not observed him closely have often failed to
understand that he is just as ready to fight, with energy and determination,
for any cause that has won his support. But it is almost always some other
man's cause which enlists him. His battles have been in other interests than
his own. First of all he is an altruist, and then a fighter.
A
COMBATIVE ALTRUIST.
This combative altruism is
Mr. Taft's most distinguished characteristic. As Secretary of War he has earned
the world-wide sobriquet of "Secretary of Peace." He has fought some
hard battles, but they were with bloodless weapons, and the results were
victories for peace. The greater the degree of altruism the keener was his
zeal, the harder and more persistent his battle. The greatest struggle of his
career, in which he disregarded utterly his settled ambition, and cheerfully
faced a continuing serious menace to life itself, was on behalf of the weakest
and most helpless object in whose cause he was ever enlisted—the Filipino people.
That was the purest and loftiest altruism.
But although this is the
dominant trait of Mr. Taft, he is well known for other qualities. His judicial
temperament, founded upon a deep seated, comprehensive and ever alert sense of
right and wrong; his courage, proved by repeated and strenuous tests; his calm,
imperturbable judgment, and his all embracing sympathy are characteristics that
have been often and widely noted. They are his by right of inheritance from
generations of broad-minded, upright men and women. The development of his
country has extended the range of his opportunity and given greater scope to
his activities than was enjoyed by Alphonso Taft, his father, or Peter Rawson
Taft, his grandfather, but in character and intellect he is their true descendant.
The American people know
Mr. Taft as a man of pervasive good humor, always ready with a hearty laugh,
and quick to see fun in any situation. His other side has not often appeared,
but he is capable of tremendous wrath. Nothing arouses it more quickly than
unfaithfulness to a trust or an exhibition of deceit. Injustice in any form
stirs him to the bottom instantly. He has a broad, keen, quick, all-embracing
sympathy, always ready to respond to any call. His sense of justice is
wonderfully quick-springing and alert. And he has a genuine fondness for work,
which enables him to derive real pleasure from his task. These qualifications
are the endowment of an unusually gifted man. The people know, because they
have seen, his ability to turn off an enormous amount of work. They have seen
him prove an exceptional executive ability. They have seen him manifest an
equipment for the Presidency such as no other man has shown before his election
to that office. In experience, training and ability, Mr. Taft has amply proved
his fitness for the chief magistracy of the nation.
The Congressional Evolution of the United States of America
Continental Congress of the United Colonies Presidents
Continental Congress of the United States Presidents
July 2, 1776 to February 28, 1781
202-239-1774 | Office
202-239-0037 | FAX
Dr. Naomi and Stanley Yavneh Klos, Principals
Continental Congress of the United Colonies Presidents
Sept. 5, 1774 to July 1, 1776
September 5, 1774
|
October 22, 1774
| |
October 22, 1774
|
October 26, 1774
| |
May 20, 1775
|
May 24, 1775
| |
May 25, 1775
|
July 1, 1776
|
Commander-in-Chief United Colonies & States of America
George Washington: June 15, 1775 - December 23, 1783
Continental Congress of the United States Presidents
July 2, 1776 to February 28, 1781
July 2, 1776
|
October 29, 1777
| |
November 1, 1777
|
December 9, 1778
| |
December 10, 1778
|
September 28, 1779
| |
September 29, 1779
|
February 28, 1781
|
Presidents of the United States in Congress Assembled
March 1, 1781 to March 3, 1789
March 1, 1781 to March 3, 1789
March 1, 1781
|
July 6, 1781
| |
July 10, 1781
|
Declined Office
| |
July 10, 1781
|
November 4, 1781
| |
November 5, 1781
|
November 3, 1782
| |
November 4, 1782
|
November 2, 1783
| |
November 3, 1783
|
June 3, 1784
| |
November 30, 1784
|
November 22, 1785
| |
November 23, 1785
|
June 5, 1786
| |
June 6, 1786
|
February 1, 1787
| |
February 2, 1787
|
January 21, 1788
| |
January 22, 1788
|
January 21, 1789
|
Presidents of the United States of America
D-Democratic Party, F-Federalist Party, I-Independent, R-Republican Party, R* Republican Party of Jefferson & W-Whig Party
(1789-1797)
|
(1933-1945)
| |
(1865-1869)
| ||
(1797-1801)
|
(1945-1953)
| |
(1869-1877)
| ||
(1801-1809)
|
(1953-1961)
| |
(1877-1881)
| ||
(1809-1817)
|
(1961-1963)
| |
(1881 - 1881)
| ||
(1817-1825)
|
(1963-1969)
| |
(1881-1885)
| ||
(1825-1829)
|
(1969-1974)
| |
(1885-1889)
| ||
(1829-1837)
|
(1973-1974)
| |
(1889-1893)
| ||
(1837-1841)
|
(1977-1981)
| |
(1893-1897)
| ||
(1841-1841)
|
(1981-1989)
| |
(1897-1901)
| ||
(1841-1845)
|
(1989-1993)
| |
(1901-1909)
| ||
(1845-1849)
|
(1993-2001)
| |
(1909-1913)
| ||
(1849-1850)
|
(2001-2009)
| |
(1913-1921)
| ||
(1850-1853)
|
(2009-2017)
| |
(1921-1923)
| ||
(1853-1857)
|
(20017-Present)
| |
(1923-1929)
|
*Confederate States of America
| |
(1857-1861)
| ||
(1929-1933)
| ||
(1861-1865)
|
United Colonies Continental Congress
|
President
|
18th Century Term
|
Age
|
Elizabeth "Betty" Harrison Randolph (1745-1783)
|
09/05/74 – 10/22/74
|
29
| |
Mary Williams Middleton (1741- 1761) Deceased
|
Henry Middleton
|
10/22–26/74
|
n/a
|
Elizabeth "Betty" Harrison Randolph (1745–1783)
|
05/20/ 75 - 05/24/75
|
30
| |
Dorothy Quincy Hancock Scott (1747-1830)
|
05/25/75 – 07/01/76
|
28
| |
United States Continental Congress
|
President
|
Term
|
Age
|
Dorothy Quincy Hancock Scott (1747-1830)
|
07/02/76 – 10/29/77
|
29
| |
Eleanor Ball Laurens (1731- 1770) Deceased
|
Henry Laurens
|
11/01/77 – 12/09/78
|
n/a
|
Sarah Livingston Jay (1756-1802)
|
12/ 10/78 – 09/28/78
|
21
| |
Martha Huntington (1738/39–1794)
|
09/29/79 – 02/28/81
|
41
| |
United States in Congress Assembled
|
President
|
Term
|
Age
|
Martha Huntington (1738/39–1794)
|
03/01/81 – 07/06/81
|
42
| |
Sarah Armitage McKean (1756-1820)
|
07/10/81 – 11/04/81
|
25
| |
Jane Contee Hanson (1726-1812)
|
11/05/81 - 11/03/82
|
55
| |
Hannah Stockton Boudinot (1736-1808)
|
11/03/82 - 11/02/83
|
46
| |
Sarah Morris Mifflin (1747-1790)
|
11/03/83 - 11/02/84
|
36
| |
Anne Gaskins Pinkard Lee (1738-1796)
|
11/20/84 - 11/19/85
|
46
| |
Dorothy Quincy Hancock Scott (1747-1830)
|
11/23/85 – 06/06/86
|
38
| |
Rebecca Call Gorham (1744-1812)
|
06/06/86 - 02/01/87
|
42
| |
Phoebe Bayard St. Clair (1743-1818)
|
02/02/87 - 01/21/88
|
43
| |
Christina Stuart Griffin (1751-1807)
|
01/22/88 - 01/29/89
|
36
|
Constitution of 1787
First Ladies |
President
|
Term
|
Age
|
April 30, 1789 – March 4, 1797
|
57
| ||
March 4, 1797 – March 4, 1801
|
52
| ||
Martha Wayles Jefferson Deceased
|
September 6, 1782 (Aged 33)
|
n/a
| |
March 4, 1809 – March 4, 1817
|
40
| ||
March 4, 1817 – March 4, 1825
|
48
| ||
March 4, 1825 – March 4, 1829
|
50
| ||
December 22, 1828 (aged 61)
|
n/a
| ||
February 5, 1819 (aged 35)
|
n/a
| ||
March 4, 1841 – April 4, 1841
|
65
| ||
April 4, 1841 – September 10, 1842
|
50
| ||
June 26, 1844 – March 4, 1845
|
23
| ||
March 4, 1845 – March 4, 1849
|
41
| ||
March 4, 1849 – July 9, 1850
|
60
| ||
July 9, 1850 – March 4, 1853
|
52
| ||
March 4, 1853 – March 4, 1857
|
46
| ||
n/a
|
n/a
| ||
March 4, 1861 – April 15, 1865
|
42
| ||
February 22, 1862 – May 10, 1865
| |||
April 15, 1865 – March 4, 1869
|
54
| ||
March 4, 1869 – March 4, 1877
|
43
| ||
March 4, 1877 – March 4, 1881
|
45
| ||
March 4, 1881 – September 19, 1881
|
48
| ||
January 12, 1880 (Aged 43)
|
n/a
| ||
June 2, 1886 – March 4, 1889
|
21
| ||
March 4, 1889 – October 25, 1892
|
56
| ||
June 2, 1886 – March 4, 1889
|
28
| ||
March 4, 1897 – September 14, 1901
|
49
| ||
September 14, 1901 – March 4, 1909
|
40
| ||
March 4, 1909 – March 4, 1913
|
47
| ||
March 4, 1913 – August 6, 1914
|
52
| ||
December 18, 1915 – March 4, 1921
|
43
| ||
March 4, 1921 – August 2, 1923
|
60
| ||
August 2, 1923 – March 4, 1929
|
44
| ||
March 4, 1929 – March 4, 1933
|
54
| ||
March 4, 1933 – April 12, 1945
|
48
| ||
April 12, 1945 – January 20, 1953
|
60
| ||
January 20, 1953 – January 20, 1961
|
56
| ||
January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963
|
31
| ||
November 22, 1963 – January 20, 1969
|
50
| ||
January 20, 1969 – August 9, 1974
|
56
| ||
August 9, 1974 – January 20, 1977
|
56
| ||
January 20, 1977 – January 20, 1981
|
49
| ||
January 20, 1981 – January 20, 1989
|
59
| ||
January 20, 1989 – January 20, 1993
|
63
| ||
January 20, 1993 – January 20, 2001
|
45
| ||
January 20, 2001 – January 20, 2009
|
54
| ||
January 20, 2009 to date
|
45
|
Capitals of the United Colonies and States of America
Philadelphia
|
Sept. 5, 1774 to Oct. 24, 1774
| |
Philadelphia
|
May 10, 1775 to Dec. 12, 1776
| |
Baltimore
|
Dec. 20, 1776 to Feb. 27, 1777
| |
Philadelphia
|
March 4, 1777 to Sept. 18, 1777
| |
Lancaster
|
September 27, 1777
| |
York
|
Sept. 30, 1777 to June 27, 1778
| |
Philadelphia
|
July 2, 1778 to June 21, 1783
| |
Princeton
|
June 30, 1783 to Nov. 4, 1783
| |
Annapolis
|
Nov. 26, 1783 to Aug. 19, 1784
| |
Trenton
|
Nov. 1, 1784 to Dec. 24, 1784
| |
New York City
|
Jan. 11, 1785 to Nov. 13, 1788
| |
New York City
|
October 6, 1788 to March 3,1789
| |
New York City
|
March 3,1789 to August 12, 1790
| |
Philadelphia
|
Dec. 6,1790 to May 14, 1800
| |
Washington DC
|
November 17,1800 to Present
|
Book a primary source exhibit and a professional speaker for your next event by contacting Historic.us today. Our Clients include many Fortune 500 companies, associations, non-profits, colleges, universities, national conventions, PR and advertising agencies. As a leading national exhibitor of primary sources, many of our clients have benefited from our historic displays that are designed to entertain and educate your target audience. Contact us to learn how you can join our "roster" of satisfied clientele today!
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Hosted by The New Orleans Jazz Museum and The Louisiana Historical Center
Historic.us
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Primary Source Exhibits
727-771-1776 | Exhibit Inquiries
202-239-1774 | Office
202-239-0037 | FAX
Dr. Naomi and Stanley Yavneh Klos, Principals
Naomi@Historic.us
Stan@Historic.us
Primary Source exhibits are available for display in your community. The costs range from $1,000 to $35,000 depending on length of time on loan and the rarity of artifacts chosen.
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| U.S. Dollar Presidential Coin Mr. Klos vs Secretary Paulson - Click Here |
The United Colonies of North America Continental Congress Presidents (1774-1776)
The United States of America Continental Congress Presidents (1776-1781)
The United States of America in Congress Assembled Presidents (1781-1789)
The United States of America Presidents and Commanders-in-Chiefs (1789-Present)
The United States of America Continental Congress Presidents (1776-1781)
The United States of America in Congress Assembled Presidents (1781-1789)
The United States of America Presidents and Commanders-in-Chiefs (1789-Present)
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