President William H. Taft Home Page
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Date Published: December 31, 2024
Date Modified: May 15, 2026 |
For purposes of flow, clarity, and enhanced understanding, headings and subheadings have been added to and minor modifications made to the following text that was extracted from Mark Sullivan’s Our Times: Volume 3, Pre-War America and Our Times: Volume 4, The War Begins. These excerpts help a reader build a firm foundational understanding concerning the character of President William H. Taft, the 27th President of the United States.
William H. Taft is an interesting individual in his own right and Mark Sullivan does an excellent job revealing his character traits in this amazing work by one of America's fine journalists who had a personal relationship with several of the U. S. Presidents of his day.
William H. Taft is an interesting individual in his own right and Mark Sullivan does an excellent job revealing his character traits in this amazing work by one of America's fine journalists who had a personal relationship with several of the U. S. Presidents of his day.
Peter E. Greulich, Author and Public Speaker, 2026
Mark Sullivan’s Insights Into President William H. Taft
- William H. Taft Was Our Fattest President with a Wonderful Sense of Self-Effacing Humor
- William H. Taft: Personality Traits According to Mark Sullivan—Historian
- William H. Taft Had the Qualities of a Supreme Court Judge, Not a Politician
- William H. Taft’s Chief Problem Was That He Wasn’t Teddy Roosevelt
William H. Taft Was Our Fattest President With a Wonderful Sense of Self-Effacing Humor
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“All the jokes that have been made about fat men since Shakespeare invented Falstaff were brought from their ancient closets and stretched to fit Taft’s ample form. New ones emanated from Taft himself. …
“He was fat! But he had the frame that carries weight with an effect of majesty, of the sort that primitive men, and even modern men in the average, like to see in their kings and leaders. Arthur Brisbane said at this time, ‘He looks like an American bison … a gentle, kind one.’ “People thought of Taft’s tonnage as they think of the Leviathan, something that makes for substance and dependability and does not interfere with efficiency. Confidence and affection attended him everywhere. “He was regarded as good medicine; at once a tonic and sedative, good for the national nerves. Old-fashioned people liked to think of him as a man who probably said his prayers. "Frederick Palmer, U. S. Navy Rear Admiral, called Taft’s laugh ‘one of our great American institutions’ … |
Vice President Howard H. Taft standing on the lawn of the White House.
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“The country liked Taft. They made infinite jests about his fatness – and no one heard or repeated the jokes with greater savor than Taft himself. Making a speech he would pause, with an effect of suspense, just long enough to intensify the audience’s attention; then throughout the immense torso and up into the broad features would run little tremors and heavings, rising to a climax in a rumbling chuckle as infectious as only a fat man could achieve.
“Then Taft would tell a story in which the point was, as he would say in an engaging falsetto, ‘on me.’ ”
“Then Taft would tell a story in which the point was, as he would say in an engaging falsetto, ‘on me.’ ”
“Our Times: Volume 3,” Mark Sullivan, Journalist/Historian
William H. Taft: Personality Traits According to Mark Sullivan—Historian
- William H. Taft Was Easy Going with a Real “Liking for People” … and They for Him
“Taft traveled and his tasks took him to every corner of the country. He was seen in the flesh by probably as many people as Roosevelt. He had a natural liking for people and a human understanding of democracy—in a sense different from a political understanding, which Taft did not have at all.
“By preference he did his travelling in an ordinary lower berth, reading his newspaper in the smoking compartment, joining in conversations with his fellow passengers – in all respects he liked to share the common lot.
“Entering the dining-car of a morning, his face had the rosiness of the dawn, his bearing the heartiness of a giant refreshed. The cheeriness of his greeting to the conductor and the waiter, and to the friend or acquaintance that any average dining-car gathering was sure to contain, had the effect of diffusing good cheer, infecting the whole car with a sense of well-being, a feeling that all was well with the world.
“The people associated William H. Taft with his chief … Teddy Roosevelt, and they felt that with two such individuals at the helm, the country was well cared for.”
“By preference he did his travelling in an ordinary lower berth, reading his newspaper in the smoking compartment, joining in conversations with his fellow passengers – in all respects he liked to share the common lot.
“Entering the dining-car of a morning, his face had the rosiness of the dawn, his bearing the heartiness of a giant refreshed. The cheeriness of his greeting to the conductor and the waiter, and to the friend or acquaintance that any average dining-car gathering was sure to contain, had the effect of diffusing good cheer, infecting the whole car with a sense of well-being, a feeling that all was well with the world.
“The people associated William H. Taft with his chief … Teddy Roosevelt, and they felt that with two such individuals at the helm, the country was well cared for.”
“Our Times: Volume 3,” Mark Sullivan, Journalist/Historian
- William H. Taft and Teddy Roosevelt Were a “Balanced Team”
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“Roosevelt loved Taft and admired him, extravagantly - admired him to a degree that almost reached a kind of generous envy. …
“Yet it was not just his affection, but the regard Teddy Roosevelt had for Taft’s ability and gratitude for Taft's services. … Roosevelt wrote in a letter to Taft: ‘If only there were three of you, then I would have one of you on the Supreme Court, one of you as Secretary of War, and one of you permanently as Governor of the Philippines.’ …. “Leaving Washington for a long trip to a Rough Rider reunion at San Antonio, Texas, and a swing around the circle, Roosevelt told the newspaper correspondents: ‘Oh, things will be all right; I have left Taft sitting on the lid’ – a passage which, considering Taft’s weight, was one of the most fruitful of the many opportunities that Roosevelt’s pungent phrases presented to cartoonists. |
A cartoon depicting Vice President William H. Taft "Sitting on the lid of Washington D.C." in Teddy Roosevelt's absence.
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“Our Times: Volume 3,” Mark Sullivan, Journalist/Historian
William H. Taft Had the Qualities of a Supreme Court Judge, Not a Politician
President Taft was a good man who was "out of his time."
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"Taft was not a bad President; he was a good one.
“He had absolute integrity; he was honest—simply honest, transparently honest. “Taft was high-minded, just-minded, clean-minded, clear-minded; no lawyer or judge of his time could excel the sure-mindedness with which he thumbed through great stacks of legal papers, his mind absorbing their contents, his judgment finding the gist. “He was clear-minded and discriminating about men, too, and could on occasion exercise a unique power of characterization—one of the insurgent senators he described as ‘so narrow he can see through a key-hole with both eyes at once without squinting.’ “His appointments to the bench and to executive positions were above the average. |
“Considerably less than Roosevelt would Taft relax the highest standards of public service to name a friend to office or pay a debt to a politician. Indeed, Taft leaned backward. [James Gurney] Cannon, in a moment of irritation about patronage sought and refused, said, ‘The trouble with Taft is that if he were Pope he would think it necessary to appoint a few Protestant cardinals.’
“Taft had much less capacity for self-delusion than Roosevelt. If a man was of dubious character, Taft’s instinct knew it and his rigid rectitude did not condone it. If a man was evil, Taft knew it; if one had done wrong, either in the general sense or to Taft, Taft remembered it.
“Taft practice hypocrisy far less than most Presidents, even the relatively harmless political variety, or compromise with it. Anything devious was abominable to him. In all 303 pounds of him, not a pound nor an ounce nor a gram was deceit. Furtiveness—secrecy or stealth, he despised. At his desk, if a politician leaned to whisper to him, Taft’s end of the conversation would rise until the window panes rattled.
“He had courage too: at all times the quiet kind, and, when roused, the energetic kind.
“Taft had much less capacity for self-delusion than Roosevelt. If a man was of dubious character, Taft’s instinct knew it and his rigid rectitude did not condone it. If a man was evil, Taft knew it; if one had done wrong, either in the general sense or to Taft, Taft remembered it.
“Taft practice hypocrisy far less than most Presidents, even the relatively harmless political variety, or compromise with it. Anything devious was abominable to him. In all 303 pounds of him, not a pound nor an ounce nor a gram was deceit. Furtiveness—secrecy or stealth, he despised. At his desk, if a politician leaned to whisper to him, Taft’s end of the conversation would rise until the window panes rattled.
“He had courage too: at all times the quiet kind, and, when roused, the energetic kind.
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“Never did he yield to any organized militant minority; his scorn for that was a chief cause of his downfall. ‘No President in recent years,’ one of his most powerful critics was forced to concede, ‘has won for himself more widespread personal admiration for kindliness, for candor, and for integrity.’ And when this critic sought justification for his condemnation he found it, mainly, in the vague charge that Taft was too Constitution-minded, that he ‘is primarily an interpreter of laws rather than an administrator of laws.’
“In other words, Taft should have been a judge rather than a President. “The charge, of course, was true. ...” |
“Our Times: Volume 4,” Mark Sullivan, Journalist/Historian
William H. Taft’s Chief Problem Was That He Wasn’t Teddy Roosevelt
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“Unlike Teddy Roosevelt, it was not in Taft to start things and keep pushing them.
“In the conditions that arose around him and determined his fate, it was the politicians who, with vigilant alertness, knew the kind of man they had to deal with, and supplied the initiative. “Taft’s role was that of belatedly trying to catch up with situations after it was too late. ... Taft was static, his power that of inertia, not of momentum. ... If there should be a turn for the better for him, it would have to ‘happen.’ Taft would not bring it about; he would not see to it that it should happen. “If it came, it would be through ‘luck’ or not at all. ... |
Select this image to read what President William H. Taft wrote about Federal and Confederate Soldiers fifty years after the end of the Civil War. One can only wish it were true today.
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“His tragedy was merely that he was a placid man in a restless time, had a judicial temperament when the country was in a partisan mood, was a static man in a dynamic age. ... During any period of national quiescence Taft might have been uniquely in tune with the universe. His heartiness, genuineness and sincerity might have been a tonic to similar qualities in the country.
“But the people had recently drunk deep of the very different qualities of another personality—Teddy Roosevelt; having been stimulated by the heady wine of strenuousness, they could not be content with the tepid nectar of Taft’s milder qualities.
“Taft’s chief failing was that he differed from Roosevelt.
“Taft’s chief misfortune was that he followed Roosevelt in the Presidency.”
“But the people had recently drunk deep of the very different qualities of another personality—Teddy Roosevelt; having been stimulated by the heady wine of strenuousness, they could not be content with the tepid nectar of Taft’s milder qualities.
“Taft’s chief failing was that he differed from Roosevelt.
“Taft’s chief misfortune was that he followed Roosevelt in the Presidency.”
"Our Times: Volume 4," Mark Sullivan, Journalist and Historian
