| Show D FIVE MINUTE CHATS ABOUT OUR presidents sy sJ by JA JAMES M ES MORGAN a WILLIAM ILLIAM rV HOWARD TAFT PROFESSOR IN POLITICS 1857 sept 15 william howard T taft a ft born in cincinnati 1878 graduated at yale 1887 90 judge of the superior court 1890 2 solicitor general of the united states 1892 1900 united states circuit judge 1900 04 2 commissioner in and governor of the philippines 1904 8 secretary of war 1909 inaugurated twenty sixth president aged fifty one 11 0 HEN roosevelt and taft rode W WUEN up pennsylvania avenue on march 4 1009 1909 it was the first time since jackson and van buren had passed that way side by side more than 70 years before that a retiring president NN would not have preferred another seat mate and successor than the one whom the fortunes of politics had bad thrust upon him roosevelt alone selected bt ills successor naturally tatu rally everyone assumed that we were to have a roosevelt administration by another name and it was expected in the can campaign that the ex president would not go farther away from the white house thin than th in oyster cay bay instead he plunged into the depths of africa the fate of william howard taft would be pathetic it if he himself had not met it and borne it with a smile he was abler ebore more upright more independent than some far more successful presidents but by bent and training lie he was a judge and the white house Is no place for it judge As lawgiver and governor of lil manila aipa tatt taft had bad won the confidence of his oriental subjects and rather than desert his post before his task was finished he sacrificed the dearest ambition of his life in a year and a halt half roosevelt had him in his big cabinet is as secretary of war ind and soon had him in his eye for the presidency roosevelt had the weakness of his strength lie ile thought he be was strong st i enough to make a president but real presidents are born not nor made the moment roosevelt wig was gone the stand patters the reactionary forces emerged from their seven and one halt half years in the cyclone cellar the moment the political broncho felt the tenderfoot on its back it bucked and threw taft from the seat of leadership the next aing the rank and file of republicans knew the party was slipping back into the old rut from which roosevelt had jerked it when first he laid upon it his masterful liand hand but the people refused to go back eight months after tafts binau inauguration ura the election of 1900 sounded it a cicar warning nf if the disaster that the party parly in the congles A az f va j f op ILI ap 4 W X T william howard taft election of 1910 and which all tit destroyed it in the presidential election of 1912 according to a story that yas ps told of taft a curious fc bt tranger ranger asked a tt gatekeeper at the union station 1 in Wils washington hington where he be would stand the ibert best chance of seeing the prest amt in the few spare hours that he triad had between trains right where you are was the reply lies iles a airways ays either taking a train or getting S off air of one h taft was the first president to draw tho the present salary of congress gress 1 had bad also adopted two years before he came in the custom of adlow ing yearly for the traveling expenses of the president and he became the great presidential traveler making a record of miles in four years as he went about the country appealing for a reversal of the verdict against his big administration adminis tr in vain lie he strove to turn back abnel the tide which only sported with him after having elected him by plurality the people parted with fatt aft more in sorrow than in anger bey did not question that he be was a od president but that Is a secondary on A president must be fit t ot ail a politician and a leader 1856 december 28 woodrow wilson born at staunton va 1879 graduated at princeton 1885 married ellen louise axsen of savannah ga Asso associate clate professor at bryn mawr 1888 SO SIO professor at wesleyan university in connecticut professor at princeton 1902 10 president of princeton governor of new jersey 1913 march 4 inaugurated twenty seventh president aged fifty six 0 0 EITHER woodrow Vo wilson nor chis NEITHER his administration has yet passed into history whose judgment on them it would be folly to try to foretell nevertheless much of the record of the presidency Is made up tip and closed anil and may be summarized at least although it Is perhaps foolhardy to venture into the flames of pass lond that blind men alike to the merits and X 0 v woodrow wilson at 30 demerits demerl ts of almost every president he remains the central figure of par partisan tison strife A statesman Is a politician ican inho vho is dead said thomas B reed in this age of ours when men are going to school to learn business and farming and all manner of vocations it was natural that there should appear in the white house a man like woodrow wilson who had learned politics in the claser classroom clas arn rather than in the wardroom the eighth of our virginia born presidents dents in reality he Is not a virginian but the son ot of an ohio clergyman and of an english mother was a student or er teacher of the acl ence or rather the art of governing for GO 00 years before lie held a political office that fact was left out of their reek reckoning by the democratic abic bosses of corrupt machine ruled new jersey when they summoned the president of princeton university from the golf links one afternoon in the fall of 1910 to receive the nomination for governor when this supposed novice in politics declared as he floundered through what as lie had to own up was his first political speech that if elected governor lie would govern the politicians nudged oue one another and laughed la in their sleeves at the idea of a professor trying to run their machine they laughed out loud when they saw mal actually sit down in the governors chair and begin to play politics out of a book of all things it was a book which he himself had written in his y youthful school days merely as a thesis tor for ills phd P at johns hopkins the young graduate student made the discovery that our constitution created a vacuum which the bosses bad rushed in to fill alas popular leadership la Is neither a science nor an art that can be taught out of a book where other leaders of our democracy have appealed to the emotions lie is one of the least electric least ard dramatic abic of our presidents with no anecdotes to popularize him with no legends of his youth or myths about ills his political career to vitalize jilin him to the general imagination ne he owes ills his various successes at the polls to the cold logic of the political situation and little to ills his popularity ills academic aloofness from politics at a time when politicians ItI itic ians claus had fallen into disfavor made him the available man ter lor governor in 1910 As a candidate tor for president he ran a poor second to champ clark in ili the popular primaries of 1912 lie was nominated at baltimore only after 45 ballots and then only as a result ot of bryans overthrow of the stearn steam roller and lie was elected by the division of the R publicans e publIc ans between roosevelt and taft though he received a smaller vote than the democrats had polled la in three past elections it Is the tragedy of woodrow wll sons rons nature that when the elements were ml mused ted in him magnetism was wag denied him that lodestone lodes tono which draws the hearts of men the head has been the powerhouse of his leadership copyright 1930 by jamea moreon Ar organ |
