Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 33, Number 124, 18 June 1908 — Page 7

PAGE Fitted by Training and Experience . To Ably Fill Office for Which He Has Been Nominated First Choice of Republican Party At Its National Convention Has Long Been One of the Nation's Most Capable Men His Achievements As a Lawyer, Jurist, Cabinet Member and Backer of Rooseveltian Policies, Assure the Nation That He Will Head An Honorable Administration.

THE RICHMOND 1AIL.A1JILL1I Ai SU-TEliKGKA3I, THURSDAY, JUh IS, ltmsf.

William

Howard

Taft

In William Howard Taft . the -Re-' jmbliean National Convention, has nominated for the presidency a man exceptionally equipped, not only by nature and training, but by experience and achievement to perform the delicate and arduous duties of the greatest office in the girt of any people. For nearly thirty years he has given himself with single minded devotion ' to the public service. He has displayed throughout a broad grasp of affairs, a literally dauntless courage, an unshakable integrity, a quick and all embracing sympathy, a deep and abiding sense of justice, a marvelous Insight into human nature, a sure and unwavering judgment, executive ability of the highest order, and a limitless

1 ntnsrHtv Tor hard work. In all the Years of its history the republican par ty has jiever selected as its leader in a national campaign a man so tried beforehand, and so amply proved equal to the taift. A Family of Jurists. i Mr. Taft comes of a family distinguished in the law and the public service. The first American Tafts came of the English yeomanry, transplanted : across the Atlantic by the great upheaval for conscience's sake which peopled New England with its sturdy "stock. In this country they turned to the 6tudy and practice of law. Peter Taft was both a maker and an interpreter of the laws, having served as a member of the Vermont legislature, and afterwards as a Judge. Alphonso Taft, son of Peter Taft, was graduated from Yale college, and then went out to the Western Reserve to practice law. He settled in Cincinnati, 'ind it was at Mt Auburn, a suburb of Hhat city, on September 1857, that j'Jils son. William Howard Taft. first fbecame a presidential possibility. The boy grew up in- an atmosphere bof earnest regard for public duty too ilttle known in these days of the colossal and engrossing material development of the country. His father earned distinction in the service of city nd state and nation, going from the ..Superior bench, to which he had been fleeted unanimously, to the place in .Grant's cabinet now held by the son, .then, as Attorney-General, to the department of Justice, and finally into lthe diplomatic service, as minister ..first to Austria and then to Russia. His mother, who was Miss Louise M. Torrey, also came of that staunch New England stock with whom conscience ts the arbiter of action and duty performed the goal of service. , His Mother's Influence. It was her express command that ient him away from her last fall when both knew that she was entering upon the last stage of her life. ' He had promised the Filipinos that he would go to Manila and in person formally open their assembly. It was to be their first concrete experience in selfgovernment, and he, more than any other man, had made it possible. If he should not keep his promise there was danger that the suspicious Filipinos would impute his failure to sinis ter motives, to inaiirerence or aiterea purpose, with result vastly unfortunate to them and to us. Mr. Taft - saw all that very clearly, yet in view . of his mother's health he would have remained at home. But 6he forbade. She said his duty lay to the people he had started on the path to liberty, and i ii i i . annouEn il invoivea vnai earn thought to be the final parting she T commanded him to go. He went, and before he could return his mother had "passed away. , Much was to be expected of a boy " of such parentage, and young Taft fulfilled the expectation. lie began by growing, big physically. He has a tremendous frame. The cartoonists nave made a false presentment of him Tsminar tr me countrv rv nrawin? nim Valways a mountain of flesh. But if ".the had gone to the same extreme of '.' leanness, and still honestly portrayed his frame they would have repre- . eented a man above the average ,. "weight. At College. ? Of course he went to Yale. His fathr had been the first, nliininiia lfrtft -to the corporation, and when young Taft had completed his preparatory course at Andover he went to New Haven for his college training. He was & big,, rollicking, good natured boy, , who liked play, but still got fun out of work.' He did enough in athletics to keep his 225 pounds of muscle In good condition, but gave most of his . time to his studies. When the class of '78 was graduated Taft was its salutatorlan, having finished second among . 12. He was then not quite 21. He went back to Cincinnati and began the study of law in his father's office, at the same time doing court reporting for the newspaper owned by bis half-brother, Charles P. Taft. His salary at first was ? a week. He did his work so well, however, that - Murat Halstead. editor of the Cincin nati Commercial Gazette, employed him to work for his paper at the increased salary cf $25 a week. While he was doing this he was keeping up his studies, taking the course at the Cincinnati Law school, " from which he was graduated in isso, dividing first honors with another student and being admitted to the bar soon afterward. His Respects to a Blackmailer. . That fall there occurred one of the . most celebrated and characteristic in5 cidents in his life. A man named ... Roue was then running a blackmailing Apaper in Cincinnati. He had the reputation of being a dangerous man. He had been a prize fighter, and was usuWiv accomDanled by a cans of roughs

ready to assault any whom he wanted punished. Alphonso Taft had been the unsuccessful candidate for governor at that election, and Rose's paper slanderously assailed him. For once young Taft forgot his Judicial temperament and legal training, and instead of setting the law on the blackmailer he marched down to his office and gave Rose a terrific thrashing. When Rose begged for mercy Taft said: "If you'll agree to leave town I'll let you urn I'll come down here again tonight, and if you are still here then this thing is only a start." Rose was glad to get off on such terms. He quit Cincinnati that night and his paper never appeared again. Young Taft had had his first spectacular fight, and it was in behalf of somebody else. It is not the purpose of this little sketch to attempt a detailed biography of Mr. . Taft. It merely seeks, by a discussion of a few of the more important events of his life to show what manner of man he Is. They- reveal him as a student of application and aoility a man with an abiding sense of Justice, slow to wrath, but terrible in anger; courageous, aggressively honest and straightforward; readier to take up another's cause than his own. This is a foundation on which experence may build very largely, and that is what it has done Tor Taft.' ""

The Call to Public Office. He was hardly out of his boyhood when he was called to public office, and in most of the years since then he has devoted himself to the public service. First he was assistant prosecuting attorney of Hamilton county, and -helped to drive ant the ohi Campbell ring, whose influence long had dominated the Cincinnati court house. In 1KS1 he became collector of internal revpnue for the first Ohio district, and ..tnonstrated the same ability in busi ess that he had shown in the law. A year later he resigned that office and went back to the practice of law, with his father's old partner, H. P. Floyd. In 1SS3 he became assistant county solicitor. Two years later Governor Foraker appointed him Judge of the superior court, to succeed Judson Harmon who had resigned to enter President Cleveland's cabinet. In ISSO Judge Taft married Miss Helen Her'ron, daughter of Hon. John W. Herron, of Cincinnati. They have three children, Robert Alphonso, a student at Yale, Helen, a student at Bryn Mawr, and Charles Phelps, 2d, who attends the public schools in Washington. His Judicial Career Begun. His appointment as Judge of the superior court was the beginning of the Judicial career which was Taft's ambition, and for which he was so eminently fitted. He made such a record as a judge that at the close of his appointed term he was triumphantly elected for another term. " But already he had attracted attention outside his state, and he had served by two years of the five years for which he had been elected when President Harrison asked him to take the difficult post of Solicitor General of the United States. This was an office of the utmost importance, involving not only wide learning and tremendous application, but the power of clear and forceful presentation of argument. Two of the cases which he conducted as solicitor general involved questions of vital importance to the entire country. The first grew out of the seal fisheries controj versy with Great Britain. Mr. Taft won against such eminent counsel as Joseph H. Choate who is widely recognized as a leader of the American bar. The other was a tariff case in which the Maw was a. tacked on the ground that Speaker Reed had counted a quorum when the bill passed the house. That, too, he won. It was during his term as solicitor general that Mr. Taft met Theodore Roosevelt, then civil service commissioner, and began the friendship which has continued and grown ever since and which has had such far-reaching influence upon the lives of both men. On the Federal Bench. M. Taft's record as solicitor general so clearly proved his fitness for the bench that after three years in Washington he was sent back to Ohio as judge of trfe Sixth Federal circuit, a post generally recognized as a preliminary step to the supreme court, which was then the goal of his ambition. It was during his seven years on the , federal bench that Mr. Taft's qualities las a judge became known throughout the country. He was called upon then to decide some of the most important cases that have ever been tried in the federal courts, in the conduct of whfch he established an enviable reputation for learning, courage and fairnessthree essential attributes of a great jurist. His power of application and his ability to turn off enormous masses of work received ample demonstration during this time. It was in this period of his service that he rendered the labor decisions which have made him famous as an upright and fearless judge. In his treatment of both labor and capital he showed that here was a judge who knew no distinction of parties when they appeared as litigants before him. He voiced the law as he knew it and the right as he saw it, no matter where the blow fell or whom it struck. If sometimes the decisions went against what organized labor at that time believed to be its cause, it must not be forgotten that no clearer or broader statement of the true rights of labor has ever been made than in some of his judicial utterances. Lawyers conducting litigation in other courts on behalf of labor

unions have often cited these decisions of Judge Taft in support of their contentions. Neither should it be forgotten that one of the most important and far reaching of all his judgments was that against the Addystone Pipe company, in which for the first time the Sherman anti-trust law was made a living, vital force for the curbing and punishment of monopoly. When this case reached the supreme court, Mr. Taft received the distinguished and unusual honor of having his decision handed down as part of the opinions of the high court which sustained him at every point. Pioneering the Roosevelt Policy. This Addystone Pipe decision marked the beginning of the struggle for federal control of interstate corporations which in the later years has come to be known as the "Roosevelt policy." Mr. Taft in an address to the American Bar association at Detroit in the summer of lSWi, had enunciated the , principle on wnlch President Roosevelt has made his great fight for the suppression of monopoly and the abolition of special privilege. Thus Mr. Taft pioneered the way for the 'Roosevelt policy." Blazing the Philippine Trail. Since the settlement of the reconstruction questions no more delicate or fateful problem has confronted American "statesmanship than that of the Philippines. The sudden pitching of over-sea territory into our possession as a result of the war with Spain, cre

ated a situation not only unexpected, but entirely without precedent. There was. no guide for our statemen. The path had to be hewed out new from the beginning, , There was no crystalization of opinion among the-American people as to what should be done with the Philippines. A considerable element was vigorously opposed to retaining them, but the vast majority demanded the maintenance of American sovereignty there. Among these, at first, the desire was undoubtedly due to the glamour of aggrandizement. The possibility of wealth somewhere beyond the sky line always catches the imagination, and there can be no question that the great mass of the people moved without serious thought of the consequences, toward American exploitation of the islands. But even at that early day there were a few a very few among the leaders of American thought and action who saw clearly the responsibility thrust upon the country by the adventitious possession of the Philippines, and determined to meet it fully, no matter what clamor of opposition might arise. Among these President McKinley was one. Mr. Taft was another. Mr. Taft had been opposed to taking the islands. He was opposed to retaining them. More than all he opposed their exploitation for American benefit. He believed that the Philippines belonged to the Filipinos, and should be developed in the interest of their own people. Shouldering the "White Man's Burden." He saw the possibility of lifting a feeble, ignorant people into the light of liberty and setting them upon the path to intelligent, efficient self-government. That possibility reconciled him to the continuance of American authority over the islands, for none saw more clearly than he the chaos certain to result from immediate independence for the Filipinos, with Its inevitable and speedy end in complete and hopeless subjection to some other power. Therefore when President McKinley asked him to go to Manila and undertake the difficult and thankless task of starting the Filipinos upon their true course, he sacrificed the judicial career which was his life's ambition and shouldered the "White Man's Burden." It was in March. 10X, that he received his appointment as chairman of the Philippine commission. Not many Americans have ever com prehended thoroughly the size of Mr. Taft's undertaking, or the full meaning of his achievements. Through a bungle in our first dealings with Aguinaldo and the Filipinos the entire native population of the islands had come to believe, with some reason, that the Americans were their enemies and had betrayed them. Mr. Taft arrived at Manila to find a people subdued by force of arms, but unanimously hostile sullen and suspicious. They were still struggling with the bitterness of despair, against the power in which they all saw only the hand of the oppressor. Overcoming the Barrier Between East and West. Moreover their leader had been inoculated with the belief that between west and east there ts an impassable barrier which will always prevent the Occidental from, understanding and sympathizing with the Oriental. The experience of generations had confirmed them in that belief. The only government in their knowledge was tyranny. The only education in their history was deceit. The only tradition they possessed was hatred of oppression made concrete for them by their experience with western domination. That was what Mr. Taft had to face, and in three years he had overcome and changed it all. He did it by the persuasive power of the most winning personality the Filipinos had ever known. He met them on their own level. He lived with them, ate with them, drank with them, danced with them and he showed them that here was an -Occidental who could read and sympathize with the Oriental heart. He gave them a new conception of justice, and they saw with amazement that it was even-handed, respecting neither

person nor condition, a great Ieveler. equalizing all before the law. They saw Mr. Taft understanding them better than they had understood themselves, comprehending their problems more wisely than their own leaders had done, and standing all the time like a rock solidly for their interests. They saw him opposed by almost all his country men in their islands, denounced and assailed with the utmost vehemence and venom by Americans, simply because he steadfastly resisted American exploitation and persisted in his declaration that the Philippines

should be for the Filipinos. They j saw him laboring day and night in i their behalf and facing death itself j with cheerful resignation in order to j porrp thaif snaa1 T f woe t a lation to them. It was something beyond their previous ken, outside of all their experience, their education and their tradition. It convinced them, A Revelation to the Filipinos. Mr. Taft gave them concrete examplea" of disinterestedness and good faith which they could not fail to comprehend. He gave them schools and the opportunity of education, one of the dearest wishff of the whole people. No man who was not in the Philippines in the early days of the American occupation will ever understand thoroughly with what pitiful eagerness the Filipino people desired to learn. Men, women and children, white haired grandfathers "and grandmothers craved above everything the opportunity to go to school and receive instruction in the simplest rudiments. It Is difficult to tell how deep ly that eager desire touched Mr. Taft and how earnestly he responded to But education was only a beginning. Mr. Taft gave the Filipinos the opportunity to own their own homes. It was another concrete example of simple justice. When they saw him aegotiating for the friar lands, and at a great expense to the American government, securing for the Filipinos the right to buy those lands on easy terms, it went home to the dullest among them that he fas working unselfishly in their behalf. And they saw his justice in their courts. For the first time in all their experience the poorest and humblest Filipino found himself able to secure an even-handed, honest decision, without purchase and without influence. Even that was not all. They saw Mr. Taft literally and faithfully keeping his promise and calling Filipinos to share in their own government, not merely in the subordinate and lowly places which they had been able to purchase from their old masters, but in the highest and most responsible posts. They saw men of their race called to membership in the commission, in the supreme court, and in all the other branches of their government. And they believed the promise of even wider experience of self-government to come. An Unparalleled Achievement. It was a practical demonstration of honesty and good faith such as the Philippines had never known. It was a showing of sympathy, justice and comprehension which could not be resisted. Conviction followed it in evitably. The whole people knew because they saw that the Philippines were to be maint.ned for the Filipinos, and they recognized their own unfitness for the full responsibilities of Independent self-government, and cheerfully set themselves to the task of preparation. That is the achievement of Mr. Taft in the Philippines. It has scarcely a parrallel in history. What it cost him he paid without question or complaint. He had given up the judicial career when he went to Manila. But three times in the course of his service for the Filipinos the opportunity to reenter it came to him, each time with an offer of a place on the supreme court which had been his life-long goal. Each time he refused it. Not even President Roosevelt understood the call to Mr. Taft from the Filipinos and when he offered a supreme court justiceship to Mr. Taft he accompanied it with almost a command. But Mr. Taft declined. He saw clearly his duty lay to the people whom he had led to believe in him as the personification of American justice and good faith, and he made the president see it too. How the Filipinos felt was shown when on hearing of the danger (that Mr. Taft might be called away j from Manila, they flocked in thousands about his residence and begged him not to go. When ultimately he J did leave the islands it was only to i come home as secretary of war, in j which office he could continue his direction of Philippine affairs and make ! sure that there should be no deviation from the successful line of policy he ' had marked out. The Birth of a Nation. j What is the result? The birth of a nation. The great, powerful AmeriI can people, through the compelling j agency cf Mr. Taft. has paused ever ;so slightly in its triumphant onward ! march, to stoop down and lift up a j feeble, ignorant and heirless jieople j and set it oa the broad highway of j liberty. Vaguely, uncertainly, not ; comprehending clearly just what it j was doing, not understanding always fully either the object or the means of accomplishment, but its heart right f and submitting confidently to the j leadership of a man in whom it trusted implicitly, this nation has assisted i in a new birth of freedom for a lowly and oppressed people. To William Howard Taft belongs the lion's share of the credit. Not often Is it given to one man to do such work for humanJity. Seldom is such altruism as his displayed. Many other honors hare

come to him; many others will yet come. Among them all none win be of greater significance or of more lasting value than his work for the Filipinos. Secretary of War. It is not important here to discuss in detail Mr. Taft's administration of the war department since he succeeded Elihu Root as secretary of war on February 1, 1904. He has been at the head of it during the years of Its greatest range of activity. He is not merely secretary of the army, as almost all his predecessors were. He is secretary of the colonies. Under his direction fall matters of the utmost importance affecting every one of the over-sea possessions of the United States. The affairs of the army alone have often proved sufficient to occupy the whole attention of an able secretary. Mr. Taft has had to handle not only those and the Philippine and Cuban business, but to

direct the construction of the Panama Canal as well. And at not infrequent intervals he has been called on to participate in the direction of other weighty affairs of government. He has been the general adviser of President Roosevelt and has been called into consultation on every important matter which has required governmental action. The administration of canal affairs has required in a high degree that quality described as executive ability. The building of a canal is a tremendous enterprise, calling constantly for the exercise of sound business judgment. In It Mr. Taft has displayed in ripened proportions the abilities he foreshadowed when solicitor general and collector of internal revenues. Building the Canal. - When Mr. Taft became secretary of war this country had just taken possession of the canal zone, under treaty with the republic of Panama, and of the old canal property, including the Panama railroad, by purchase from the French company. The work was all to do. The country expected the dirt to begin to fly at once. The newspapers and periodicals were full of cartoons representing Uncle Sam In long boots with a spade on his shoulder, striding down to the isthmus to begin digging. But before there could be any real excavation there was a tremendous task to meet. First of all the isthmus must be changed from a disease breeding pest hole to a place where Americans could live and work in safety. The canal zone must be cleaned up, mosqultos stamped out and the place made sweet and healthy. Habitations must be constructed for many thousands of workmen and their families. The cities of Panama and Colon, at the terminal of the canal, must be made thoroughly sanitary and supplied with water and sewers. An organization for the work of canal construction must be perfected and millions of dollars worth of machinery and supplies must be purchased and transported to the isthmus. All these things, however, were of a purely business character. It required only time and ability to handle them properly. But there was another matter to be taken care of before these could be undertaken, and it was of a decidedly different nature. The Hay-Varilla treaty with Panama had secured to the United States all the rights necessary for complete control of the canal zone, and it became of the most importance to insure the maintenance of friendly relations with the people of the isthmus republic. It would certainly greatly increase the ordinary difficulties of building the canal if our people had to encounter the hostilities of the Panamanians. Here was a problem largely similar tc that met by Mr. Taft in the Philippines, and calling for the exercise of the same qualities of tact, sympathy, justice and patience which he had exhibited in the Far East. It became his task to convince the Panamanian people and government that the United States had not gone to I the isthmus to build a rival state inj stead of a canal. As head of the war department, and the superior of the Canal commission, he has conducted all the affairs of this government with the republic of Panama since the ratification of the original treaty, and i has succeeded in keeping our relations i with the isthmus uniformly pleasant. ; Always, at least once a year, he has j made a trip to the canal zone and exj aniined affairs there w ith his own j oyes. He has just returned from the ' isthmus, the president having sent him there to settle a number of questions which required his personal consideration on the ground. Perhaps some conception of his responsibilities on the isthmus may be had from the fact that sirj-e the actual work cf canal building began there has been spent on It upward of $50,000,000, and every dollar of that expenditure required and received his approval. Real Self-Government for Cuba. Aside from, the Philippines and the Canal the greatest call that has been madeunon Mr. Taft since he became secretary of war came from Cuba. Tliis was a case largely similar to the Philippine problem. The American people have so long imbibed the theory and practice of self-government with their mothers' milk that they have developed a tendency to believe any people fitted for it who desire it To us liberty is self-government, but to many a people with neither experience nor tradition of anything but practical autocracy self-government is only license. So it was with the Cubans. When our intervention had freed that Island from the Spanish yoke we deemed it sufficient insurance of successful government for the Cubans to require them to adopt a constitution before we turned the island over

to them. We ignored the fact that Cuba had no, experience of constitutions or understanding of their functions. So when Cuba had conformed to our requirment we sailed away from Havana and left her to work out her own salvation unaided and untaught. The result of that folly was inevitable and not long delayed. The Cu

bans having adopted a constitution they had not the slightest idea of what to do with it. They proceeded to govern under the only system of which they had any knowledge. The proclamation of the president took the place of the old royal decree. He created by his fiat the departments of government which should have been established by law of congress under authority of the constitution. Freedom in the American sense was unknown in Cuba. Justice was a mockery because it was a matter of purchase, and government was oppression-Order Out of Chaos. The experiment was aimed toward chaos and its expectation was quickly realized. In September, 1906. the United States had to intervene again, and the task fell on Mr. Taft. Fortunate it was both for the United States and Cuba that it was so. With his experience of the Filipinos as a guide and the - magne tism . of . his . personality as a lever Mr. Taft placated tbe" warring factions and secured peaceable intervention. Then he devised and set up a provisional government which all the Cubans accepted. It was the intention then to main tain that government only long enough to give the Cubans a fair election at which they might select. their own government by full and free ex pression of their own will, trot almost Immediately the provisional government discovered the fundamental mis take made by the earlier American administration. It found that the Cu bans had been attempting to administer a government which never had been organized and existed only by virtue of the president's will. Patlant ly. the provisional government 6et to work, under the, direction of Mr. Taft, to provide the organization under the fundamental law which the Cubans had never known was the essential of successful self-government. The work Is now nearing completion, and when next the -Americans quit Havana it will be after turning over to the Cubans a governmental machine properly established and fully equipped, whose operation they have been taught to understand and control. Thus, to two peoples has Mr. Taft been called upon to give Instruction in practical self-government. The character of Mr. Taft Is the resultant of strongly contrasting forces. He is a man who laughs and fights. From his boyhood good nature and good humor have been the traits which always received notice first But all the time he has been capable of a splendid wrath, which now and then has blazed out, under righteous provocation, to the utter consternation and undoing of its object. Because he is always ready to laugh, and has a great roar of enjoyment to signify his appreciation of the humorous, men who have not observed him closely have often failed to understand that he is just as ready to fight, with energy and determination, for any cause that has won his support. But it is almost always some other man's cause which enlists him. His battles have been in other interests than his own. Flm of all he is an altruist, and then a fighter. , A Combative Altruist This combative altruist is Mr. Taft's most distinguishing characteristic. As secretary of war he has earned the world-wide sobriquet of "Secretary of Peace." He has fought some hard battles, but they were with bloodless weapons, and the results were victories for peace. The greater the degree of altruism the keener was his zeal, the harder and more persistent his battle. The greatest struggle of his career, in which he disregarded utterly his settled ambition, and cheerfully faced a continuing and serious menace to life itself, was on behalf of the weakest and most helpless object in whose c?use he was ever enlisted the Filipino people. That was the purest and loftiest altruism. But although this is the dominant trait of Mr. Taft, he is well known for other qualities. His judicial temperament, founded upon a deep seated. comprehensive and ever alert sense ! of right and wrong; his courage, prov ed by repeated and strenuous tests; his calm, imperturable judgment, and lii3 all-embracing sympathy are characteristics that have been often and widely noted. They are his by right of inheritance from generations of broad minded, upright men and womi en. The development of his country has extended the range of his opportunity and given greater scope to his activities than was enjoyed by Alphonso Taft, his father, or Peter Raw son Taft, his grandfather, but in character and Intellect he Is their troe descendant. The American people know Mr. Taft as a man of pervasive good humor, always ready with a hearty laugh, and quick to see fun in any situation. His other side has not often appeared, but he is capable of tremendous wrath. Nothing arouses it more quickly than unfaithfulness to a trust or an exhibition of deceit Injustice in any form stirs him to the bottom instantly. He has a broad, keen, quick, all-embracing sympathy, always ready to respond to any call. His sense of justice is wonderfully quick-springing and alert And he has a genuine fondness for work, which enables him to derive real pleasure from bis task.

These qualifications are .the endowment of an unusually gtfted man. The people know, because they have seen, his ability to turn off an enormous amount of work. They have seen him prove an exceptional executive ability. They have seen him manifest an equipment for the presidency such as no other man has shown before his

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