Taft 2012 - Jason Heller [0]
Copyright © 2012 by Jason Heller
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Number: 2011933458
eISBN: 978-1-59474-556-0
Cover design and illustration by Doogie Horner
Cover photo by Sherwood Forlee
Interior design by Katie Hatz
Production management by John J. McGurk
Quirk Books
215 Church Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
quirkbooks.com
v3.1
To the real Irene: Margaret Smith, my grandmother, who came into this world the same week Taft was voted out of office. I hope you’re somewhere fixing a nice plate of chicken-and-dumplings for Big Bill right now.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Part I: 2011
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Part II: 2012
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Epilogue: 2021
Chapter Thirty
Acknowledgments
About the Author
“The Bigness of the job demands a man of Taft’s type. He is thoroughly prepared for the task.… Never has there been a candidate for the Presidency so admirably trained in varied administrative service. Creed and color make no difference to him; he seeks to do substantial justice to all. There isn’t a mean streak in the man’s make-up. No man, too, fights harder when he thinks it necessary—but he hates to fight unless it is necessary.”
—President Theodore Roosevelt, explaining why he endorsed William Howard Taft to follow him in office, 1908
“To be a successful latter-day politician, it seems one must be a hypocrite.… That sort of thing is not for me. I detest hypocrisy, cant, and subterfuge. If I have got to think every time I say a thing, what effect it is going to have on the public mind—if I have got to refrain from doing justice to a fair and honest man because what I may say may have an injurious effect upon my own fortune—I had rather not be president.”
—President William Howard Taft, two years into his term, 1910
December 6, 1912
Dear President Taft.
I am sorry you lost your election. My daddy says Wilson is a lousy so & so. When you are not busy being President any more you can come visit me at my house because I am from Cincinnati too. I would like a Teddy Roosevelt bear for Christmas. Thank you for reading my letter. Liberty & justice for all.
Signed, Irene O’Malley, age 6
The Washington Herald
Editorial column
March 5, 1913
The Herald editorial board would like to add a final note to our exclusive reportage of President Wilson’s inauguration.
This newspaper has certainly had its disagreements with William Howard Taft during the four years he resided at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and we have not hesitated to point out the many occasions upon which “Big Bill” failed to live up to his predecessor Mr. Roosevelt’s fine example: for instance, his shameful treatment of that American institution, U.S. Steel. His refusal to sign legislation that would have sensibly restricted immigration to the literate. His un-American love for taxing businesses at the exorbitant rate of an entire percent of their annual income. This editorial board could go on at length!
But, for all these faults, we must acknowledge that Mr. Taft usually managed to approximate the personal behavior of a civil gentleman while president, a fact that leaves us all the more scandalized by his behavior yesterday. After saying his good-byes at the White House door in the morning, Big Bill subsequently did not bother to show up at all for resident Wilson’s swearing-in. A more egregious snub, a more unpresidential breach of propriety,