Francis E. Leupp

“ Taft had tried to procure a provision for a permanent commission of economic experts, whose duty it should be to investigate various industries so as to ascertain the actual difference between foreign and domestic costs of production. By revising their data from time to time, he believed that the commission could help congress to keep the tariff abreast of the times, and avoid trade upheavals such as now attend every attempt to modernize the schedules. ”

“ The platform, among other things, called for an immediate revision of the tariff so as to equalize the difference in cost of production at home and abroad, with a margin of profit to the domestic producer; a more elastic currency; a fearless enforcement of the law against trusts; a postal savings system; additional legislation in the interest of wage-workers; the admission of New Mexico and Arizona as states of the union; the arbitration of international controversies, and the protection of all American citizens in their rights of travel and sojourn in friendly countries. ”

“ He followed this, a year later, with a speech on President Roosevelt's enforcement of the interstate commerce and anti-monopoly laws, which had been widely charged with bringing on the financial panic of 1907, saying: “The question you have ultimately to meet is not whether we shall return to a condition of unregulated railways and unregulated trusts, but whether we shall turn the country over to the advocates of government ownership and state socialism. ”

“ In another case, where a labor union, boycotting a railroad which was in the hands of a receiver, had definitely disobeyed the orders of the court, the situation was tense, and the atmosphere charged with the spirit of riot; but Judge Taft punished the chief ringleader in the incident for contempt, after showing in an exhaustive opinion that the boycotters were violating both the interstate commerce and the anti-trust laws ”

“ The campaign was not exciting, though Mr. Roosevelt worked untiringly, planning the great strokes, vouching for the candidate in every exigency, and forcing the fighting wherever the enemy's line was weak. The democratic candidate was William J. Bryan, who had been twice defeated already, and who fell this time under an increased plurality. Mr. Taft did little speaking in his own behalf, his principal address being a dispassionate review of the cases in which he had rendered judicial decisions affecting the labor interests, to offset misrepresentations from hostile sources. ”

“ The party went over all the ground, looked into the problems then apparent, and satisfied the local authorities that the American government was dealing fairly with them, and was anxious and able to fulfil all its obligations under the lease.
The founding of a government in the canal strip resembled in some particulars the corresponding work in the Philippines. The resident population had never been educated in that respect for law and order which prevails in the United States; neglect of public sanitation had given the isthmus a bad name for yellow fever and malarial epidemics ”

“ The early breakdown of the Cuban experiment proved this true. At the cost of a war, the United States had set the island free, and enabled the people to form the republic they had so long craved; yet, within two years and six months of the end of the American occupation, the clash of parties, personal rivalries, and bad management had got the affairs of the infant government into such a snarl that civil war was imminent, and nothing was left for the United States, as protector and patron, but to intervene and restore order. To this undertaking the president assigned Mr. Taft. ”

“ When, after a preparatory course at the Woodward High school in his home city, William joined the class of 1878 at Yale university, he frankly entered the lists for scholastic honors, and avoided the distractions of competitive athletics, in which, with his powerful muscular equipment, he might have made a mark. Nevertheless, he soon won and always held the good will of his classmates, proofs of which have followed him everywhere through his career. At the close of his four years he stood second in a class of 121, and returned to Cincinnati to study for the bar. ”

“ Legislation enacted by congress concerning the tolls to be levied on vessels using the Panama canal contained a provision empowering the president to exempt the coastwise shipping of the United States from paying anything for the privilege, and the British government remonstrated against this as in violation of the neutrality clause of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty which had made possible the construction of the canal. ”

“ Obviously, the republic must be started anew.
The intervention was distorted by a malcontent element into a veiled threat of annexation, and this effect was momentarily heightened when the Cuban congress, in special session, accepted the resignation of President Palma but was unable to elect a successor, and Secretary Taft took charge of the island as provisional governor. His proclamation was therefore couched in terms designed to make clear the unselfish intentions of the United States. ”

“ Taft's nomination, Mr. Roosevelt was hailed by acclamation as the head of a progressive party, for which a general scheme of organization was adopted at once. In the same city, on August 5, a delegate convention of the new party assembled to nominate him formally for president and adopt a platform. In the interval, the democratic national convention which met in Baltimore on June 25 had nominated Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey, for president. In the November elections the democrats were victorious, the progressives coming in second. Mr. Taft received 8 electoral votes in a total of 531. ”

“ The simple fact was that the Cubans had only exchanged a Spanish master for one of their own blood, scarcely less overbearing. Their elections were shallow forms, registering the will, not of the people, but of a handful of factional leaders. ”

“ The courts will continue to administer justice, and all laws not in their nature inapplicable by reason of the temporary and emergent character of the government will be in force.”
The pledge was kept to the letter. Charles E. Magoon, who had been helpful in bringing order out of chaos in the canal zone, was installed presently in the provisional governorship and Mr. Taft returned to Washington. An American “army of pacification” was sent to the island to prevent rioting; a cabinet was appointed, composed of Cubans, each with an American “adviser” at his elbow ”

“ Anyone who seeks a retrograde step from the policy of the administration, on the theory that it would be a real step toward conservatism, is blind to every political sign of the times.” This was intended as a warning of what his fellow citizens must expect if they elected him to the presidency.
The decisive vote in the republican national convention of 1908 was taken on June 18. It gave Mr. Taft 702 of the 980 delegates, against six competitors with votes ranging between 16 and 68. James S. Sherman, of New York, was named for vice-president. ”

“ Thus bill after bill was put through in pursuance of the tactical plan of the opposition to force the president's hand.
In spite of these vicissitudes, President Taft was able to get much that he asked for. Included in the catalogue of legislation enacted during his term were laws creating a commerce court, to expedite the decision of appeals from rulings of the interstate commerce commission; establishing a postal savings system and a parcels post; submitting to the states a constitutional amendment empowering congress to impose an income tax ”

“ The menace of republican disaster in the elections of that fall, however, and the solicitations of some of his old associates in public life, overcame his resolution, and he entered the campaign with characteristic vigor, trying to check the adverse drift, but to little purpose. Reading in the result at the polls a notice that Mr. Taft could not hope for reëlection, several western republican leaders urged Mr. Roosevelt to allow them to make him their candidate for a third term of the presidency. ”

“ In September, 1906, the secretary entered the city of Havana, and, pursuing the same policy of candor which had cleared the ground for his affirmative work in the Philippines, invited information from all parties. ”

“ Situation here most critical from economic standpoint. Change proposed would create much disappointment and lack of confidence among people.” Later the offer was renewed, more in the tone of a command. Again it was declined, though this was the honor to which Mr. Taft had looked forward as the crowning prize of a lifetime of public service.
By degrees the administrative horizon cleared, and when his work had reached a fairly safe stage the governor was called once more to Washington, this time to become secretary of war. No other office would have tempted him ”