President William H. Taft Home Page
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Date Published: December 31, 2024
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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: 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, 2024
Mark Sullivan’s—A Historian’s, Insights Into President William H. Taft
- William H. Taft Had the Qualities of a Supreme Court Judge, Not a Politician
- William H. Taft’s Chief Failing and Misfortune Was that He Wasn't Teddy Roosevelt
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.
Far less than most Presidents would Taft practice hypocrisy, 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.
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. ...
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.
Far less than most Presidents would Taft practice hypocrisy, 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.
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. ...
William H. Taft’s Chief Failing and Misfortune Was that He Wasn't Teddy Roosevelt
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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, 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.
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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 IV," Mark Sullivan, Journalist and Historian
