THE PRESIDENT WITH ANOTHER DREAM

By Edwin Cooney

Imagine it’s a balmy spring afternoon in April of 1925 or 1926 — because that’s about the time that this little incident took place. Washington, D.C. is filled with tourists. The cherry tree blossoms are in full bloom.

A large, distinguished-looking man with a handlebar mustache, perhaps carrying a hat in one hand, is descending the steps of the Capitol building where the U.S. Supreme Court was housed at the time. Suddenly, up rushes a little boy about ten or eleven years old. “Oh! I know who you are,” says the little fellow excitedly. “You used to be President Coolidge.”

Well, of course, William Howard Taft never was “President Calvin Coolidge,” but he had been a most unhappy President from 1909 to 1913. Now, in the final years of his life, he was occupying the office he’d wanted since he was a boy — Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Born the second son of Alphonso and Louisa Maria Torrey Taft on September 15th, 1857 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Taft was a good-natured lad. Due to his size, he was called “big lub” by his boyhood friends. To his family and closest friends he was known as Will. His father had been one of the founders of the Republican Party in Cincinnati, Ohio and had served as a Superior Court judge there from 1866 to 1872.

In 1876, President Grant appointed Alphonso Taft as Secretary of War from March to May and then as Attorney General for the remainder of his administration. President Chester A. Arthur appointed the senior Taft Minister to Austria-Hungary from 1882 to 1884 and Minister to Russia from 1884 to 1885. In 1885, illness forced Alfonso Taft to retire to San Diego, California where he died in 1891. His son Will was then Solicitor General of the United States.

A good student, Taft graduated second in his class from Cincinnati’s Woodward High with a 91.6 grade point average in 1874. At Yale University, he also graduated second in the Class of 1878. Returning to Cincinnati, where he attended law school, he was admitted to the Ohio Bar in May of 1880, just four days after his graduation.

As he began his career, one of Will Taft’s biggest assets in addition to brains and energy was his many political connections. Although intensely interested in politics, he realized at the outset of his career that he was more suited to the judiciary than to legislative or administrative office.

His most purely political activities during the 1880’s came in 1884 when he supported incumbent president Chester A. Arthur for re-election. However, young Taft campaigned for James G. Blaine of Maine, the eventual Republican presidential nominee. Between 1882 and 1890, he would be appointed Assistant Prosecutor of Hamilton County, Ohio (1881-1882), Collector of Internal Revenue for the First District of Ohio (1882-1883), Assistant Solicitor of Hamilton County, Ohio (1885-1887) and Judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati (1887-1890).

On June 19th, 1886, Will Taft married twenty-five-year-old Helen (Nellie) Herron, the daughter of Judge John W. and Harriet Collins Herron. John Herron had been a law partner of Rutherford B. Hayes, the man who was to become our nineteenth President on March 4th, 1877. Later that year, sixteen-year-old Nellie Herron attended the Hayes’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary celebration at the White House on December 30th, 1877, along with her parents.

Will Taft met Nellie Herron at a bobsled party in January 1880 and asked her out that February. However, they didn’t date regularly until 1882. He proposed to her in April of 1886 and she accepted that May. Obviously, the new Mrs. Taft’s connections along with his own helped to launch young Will Taft’s star high into the political firmament. So strong was their eventual political prestige in Ohio, that it would nearly carry their oldest son, Robert A. Taft, to the White House in 1953.

In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison appointed him Solicitor General of the United States. (Note: The Solicitor General works under the Attorney General and is the one who often represents the U.S. government in cases before the Supreme Court and other federal courts.)

From 1892 to 1900, he served as a judge of the U.S. Sixth District Court and ex officio as a member of the U.S. Sixth District Court of Appeals with jurisdiction over Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee. Simultaneously, between 1896 and 1900, he was a professor and dean of the University of Cincinnati law school.

It may have been about this time that a humorous little incident occurred. It was customary for small town railroad stationmasters to signal trains to stop in these little villages if a sufficiently “large party” of people were waiting to board. If not, the train would pass through without stopping.

One day, Taft was meeting his judicial responsibilities in one of these small towns. When he arrived at the railroad station, he was told that the train would only stop if a “large party” were waiting. Accordingly, the good-natured judge convinced the stationmaster to request the next train coming through to stop. When it did, Taft boarded the train. The conductor was surprised when only one person got on at such a small stop. “I’m the large party,” Will Taft reportedly explained around his infectious chuckle.

In March 1900, Taft found himself in the Philippines. He was serving as president of a commission established by President William McKinley to bring civilian government to that newly acquired territory. On July 4th, 1901, he became Governor General of those restless islands.

Governor Taft stayed in the Philippines until 1904 establishing civil government in the face of an ongoing anti-American insurrection. He improved roads, harbors, built schools, established a ruling document with civil liberties, and purchased land from the Catholic church which was subdivided and distributed to peasants who had never owned property of their own. So dedicated was Taft to his work that he turned down two offers by President Theodore Roosevelt, one in October 1902 and one in April 1903, to be appointed to Taft’s beloved U.S. Supreme Court.

As Secretary of War under President Theodore Roosevelt from 1904 until 1908, Taft was a busy man. He visited Japan in 1905 and, with the President’s approval, gave permission to the Japanese to administer Korea. This was provided Japan didn’t see such administration as a first step for conquering the Philippines. For a time in 1905, he served as both Secretary of War and State during the final illness of Secretary of State John Hay. In 1907, he was provisional Governor General of Cuba. He visited Panama to inspect construction of the Canal and visited the Philippines once again.

One of the great political legends is the one that describes President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House one night with Will and Nellie Taft. Pretending to be the “seventh son of a seventh daughter” and to have clairvoyant powers, he says he can see the future of a 330-pound man. He just can’t quite tell whether that man will be President or Chief Justice of the United States. Will is supposed to have cried out “Chief Justice,” while Nellie cried out “President of the United States.”

Having mastered the conduct of his office, TR sought to master the future of his party. Having declared that he would not be a candidate in 1908, TR let it be known that William Howard Taft, a man who had never been elected but always had been appointed to a public office, should stand for election to the ultimate office in the land. So it was.

As President, Will Taft conducted a moderately although not wholly conservative administration. He encouraged bankers and private investors to invest in companies in Central and South America. These investments, President Taft believed, strengthened the political structures of countries that might otherwise fall into the hands of dangerous dictators. It was called “dollar diplomacy”.

President Taft supported and signed the Mann-Elkins Act. It increased the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission to set shipment rates thereby depriving the railroads from setting unscrupulously high shipping rates for farmers and other small businessmen.

Then there was his vigorous antitrust policy. With President Taft’s full approval, Attorney General George Wickersham brought suit against dozens of big business combinations. The administration’s biggest victory came against the American Tobacco Company and the Rockefeller run Standard Oil Company.

The White House wasn’t kind to the Tafts. Three months after one of the most frigid Inauguration Days, Mrs. Taft suffered a stroke from which she never fully recovered. Additionally, there hung over Taft the personality of TR. Could Taft measure up to Teddy Roosevelt?

Within months of the new presidency, Gifford Pinchot, one of Secretary of the Interior Richard A. Ballinger’s underlings, charged the Secretary with conspiring with coal companies to sell off public lands for profit. Pinchot was a favorite of TR who was on safari in Africa at that time. Ballinger fired Pinchot for insubordination and President Taft stood behind his Secretary. Pinchot complained to TR and the split between Taft and TR began.

Teddy Roosevelt came home in June 1910 to much ceremony. While he initially deferred to President Taft, his own ambition propelled him onward toward the 1912 GOP nomination. When the fundamentally conservative GOP denied him the nomination, Teddy took a political walk and formed the Progressive Party which split the 1912 vote. Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic nominee, got some six million votes, Roosevelt got over four million and Will Taft, who never really wanted to be President in the first place, came in third with three million plus votes.

Will Taft found peace and some satisfaction as a Yale law professor from 1913 to 1921 where he lectured, wrote magazine articles, and did some public speaking around the country. Taft was one of the few Republicans who supported Wilson’s League of Nations in 1919 and 1920.

On Thursday, June 30th, 1921, President Warren G. Harding granted William Howard Taft his fondest dream when he appointed him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

His administration of the court was efficient but, according to most historians, not brilliant. His rulings for the majority generally favored the status quo when it came to social issues. When in the minority, Taft would occasionally scold the majority of the court for overreaching the court’s jurisdiction.

On Monday, February 3rd, 1930, an aging and dying William Howard Taft resigned as Chief Justice. Thirty-three days later in the late afternoon, he passed away in his sleep. It was Saturday, March 8th, 1930.

The former President and Chief Justice of the United States was buried the following Tuesday at Arlington National Cemetery. He was the first President to be buried in that hallowed ground.

Perhaps there is an irony here. March signals the first kiss of spring when the cherry blossoms bloom. The thousands of Japanese cherry trees planted by Mrs. Taft throughout the capital were a lasting legacy to the nation. They were a gift of the Japanese government to the Tafts in 1909. The planting was completed in March of 1912. They bloom every spring welcoming you and me to Washington and they remind us once again of the beauty of our American heritage.

Surely, they were one of the legacies that beckoned that little boy and his family to Washington, D.C. that spring afternoon long ago so that he might actually see and be greeted by one of the finest men of his time.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY