OCR Text |
Show A CLOSE VIEW OF OUR FORMER PRESIDENT. The Philadelphia North American contains a most remarkable editorial on former President Taft, being the I personal opinion of the editor as formed by close association with the President, and, m part, follows. His whimsical confession the other day that he was Incurably indolent recalled our own discover of the1 weakness, though we believed of course, that it would disappear tinder ''"-I'Oiisibiliu tins fault accounts for the fact that he ls a man con-spicuously con-spicuously uninformed. He Is not I well rend, excepl In law. To newspapers newspa-pers and iiiaRa.i,,s, will, t,,.jr ,lan. oramic records or ceaseless human activities, he was always indifferent One reminiscence is very curious I Mr Taft has a habit of sudden laughter at Inappropriate moments Once, on a train, a group of newspa-i" newspa-i" r men questioned him on an Impor- tent emergencj which had arisen He listened blankly to their queries and looked at them blankly as the) awaited his reply Then, without warning, he threw back his bend and guffawed. Those who w.-re present I all men accustomed to discuss matter,-, or moment with presidents agreed afterward that this stran-e-Mbit, which they had encountered before, was simply an expression of emharrassmenl and bewilderment We witnessed a like incident. Sev-I eral a.hlsers were d.'ep in a discus-slon discus-slon with blm or momentous (.Un-paign (.Un-paign matters In the midst of a Be-1 rJous rnid important proposal came that weird burst ol laughter "I can't I help it." he said "The idea of my 1 .nroiueii is mmpiv a ioke This might seem, as It s told, a manifestation man-ifestation of a en human modesty. But, In fact, it was a pathetic testl-monj testl-monj of lack of understanding and responsibllit The same characteristic of intellectual intellec-tual Indolence and irresponsibility was seen In his Inability to say N'o. It was his Inveterate ' Instinct to agree, to comply, to accede to requests re-quests from those who hj hu o,. ; ati example, he visited Philadelphia Philadel-phia no less than twelve times. At first he came to oblige Penrose, the political boss afterward he came bets be-ts ise he was asked, because it was easier to do so than to decline And ,on his last visit he went to a midnight mid-night entertainment, while his cabinet cabi-net waited to discuss the Mexican l itis Mr. Taft has a great deal of good nature. He is. in the personal relation, rela-tion, one of the most companionablo nd agreeable of men His enjoy-j ment of novel t is quite boyish. When he firSl began to us, the nresirient I n I automobile his "joy riding' became almost a terror in Washington Ho aways delighted In his journeys by train. The swift, comfortable motion With its feeling of actually driving toward an objective, scenic, i to si.e him a flatter in-- sen-e of accomplishing accomplish-ing something, without the trouble of personal effort Yet, despite his attractive geniality of person, thrr, was In his character I a strain of vindlctiveness which manv 'persons did not suspect He would j give way at times to furious gusts jof temper And the manner in which ho could relentlessly pursue one Iwhom he disliked was shown In his treatment of Glavls, and in his savage sav-age hunting down of scores of little office holders who hail dared to oppose op-pose his renominatlon Rut of all his weaknesses, the most fatal was his lack of a stnse of responsibility re-sponsibility It was seen in his procrastination pro-crastination He left the selection of bis cabinet until the last moment, and then turned the task over to others His inaugural address was weak, because be-cause it was hast IK prepared. He began the wrecking of his partv by writing his Winona tariff speech "between "be-tween towns" on a railroad train. Lacking responsibility and Industry, Indus-try, he was quite devoid of initiative I I bis made him one of the pleasant -est men In the world to work with ' He would agree to anv suggestion. I But ho was incapable or self-help He had, however, undoubted ability in one line His legal and judicial training train-ing fitted him admirablj to search I out and weigh the meaning of hrieiK : and reports and render decisions j thereon Thus he was an excellent Judge and an incompetent executive |