Little known about Taft’s visit to W&J
In this photo from March 13, 1929, former president and U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Howard Taft, left, and Justice Louis Brandeis leave the White House in Washington after paying their first call on President Herbert Hoover.
Though he is not positively identified, the man in the front middle among Washington & Jefferson College students might be former president William Howard Taft.
William Howard Taft was larger than life – especially in the White House. He grew to an estimated 355 pounds, the heaviest U.S. president.
Talk about inflation.
The chief executive supposedly got stuck in a bathtub, which proved to be a myth. It was a popular one, though, for if anyone could have gotten stuck …
Taft’s presidency (1909-1913) was fraught with political turmoil, yet otherwise was unremarkable. His mini-profile on whitehouse.gov begins simply: “Distinguished jurist, effective administrator, but poor politician, William Howard Taft spent four uncomfortable years in the White House.”
But uncomfortable or not, he did oversee the highest office in the land, then later was chief justice of the Supreme Court – the only person to serve in those two distinguished capacities.
Three years after leaving the appropriately named Oval Office, his weight down and the burden of the nation off his back, Taft experienced a memorable Memorial Day in a more pleasant city of Washington. He spent the better part of May 30, 1916, on the Washington & Jefferson College campus, speaking breezily in two addresses to students and townspeople.
One day before the nation elects its 45th president, a brief visit by the 27th remains shrouded mostly in mystery 100 years later. According to information provided by Amy Welch, archivist and outreach librarian at W&J, Taft was largely popular with the local masses a century ago.
“His personality made a highly pleasing impression upon all who met him, and his addresses delighted all who heard him,” the Washington and Jefferson College Bulletin reported in its May 1916 edition.
By then a law professor at his alma mater, Yale University, Taft came to W&J courtesy of a lecture fund set up by Elizabeth Stockdale. School President F.W. Hinitt and President Emeritus James David Moffatt met him at the train station in Washington.
Both of Taft’s speeches were in the Old Gym, the school’s primary athletic center at the time. It is now the Swanson Wellness Center.
With a drenching rain pouring down outside, Taft was brief in his 11 a.m. speech, focusing on “Preparedness” – specifically, military preparedness. World War I was going full bore in Europe, and although the U.S. would not be involved for another year, he preached that the U.S. “must arm; not for war but for defense. We have our properties to defend, valuable indeed, but above and beyond that are our liberties, which we hold priceless.”
Taft lectured the Boy Scouts who escorted him, telling them, according to the Bulletin, “The object of the Scout organization is to teach you obedience; respect for authority; subordination to superiors. Always learn to give another his rights; you will be more of a man than if you are always jealously demanding you own particular rights.”
The former president broke for lunch as a guest of the W&J president. He returned to the Old Gym for a final address at 2:30 p.m., and it was a rousing speech before an energized audience. Taft spoke for an hour and a half to a standing-room crowd estimated at 1,500, which interrupted him repeatedly with applause.
He expounded on the preparedness theme.
“For 250 years, we have been building up a government whose purpose is self-government. Is it not worth saving? But some say, ‘No one will attack.’ How do we know? People take out insurance even if they expect to have no fires. …
“What is reasonable preparedness? Strength enough to resist attack by the mobilization of a standing army and its transportation to our shores.”
Students sitting in a section reserved for them responded vociferously when Taft brought up the W&J-Yale football rivalry. A national powerhouse at the time, W&J was dominating the ex-president’s Bulldogs.
At the end, having anticipated the moment, students saluted him with the Greek cheer, “Whichi Coax” followed by “Taft! Taft! Taft!”
Taft had dinner with Elizabeth Stockdale, then left Washington on a late train to Cleveland and another speaking engagement.
Little else is known about his appearance. Welch was unable to find a photo of the visiting Taft. She does have a shot of a large man among a group of citizens, but it was taken from a distance and there was no positive identification.
Taft is one of four U.S. presidents – in office or out – to visit W&J. He was born in Cincinnati in 1857, the son of Alphonso Taft, a U.S. attorney general and a secretary of War. He served as War secretary to Theodore Roosevelt from 1904 to 1908, then was Teddy’s choice to succeed him in the White House. A Republican, Taft easily defeated William Jennings Bryan for the presidency.
Political differences later created a rift between Roosevelt and Taft. Roosevelt left the Republican Party, formed the Progressive – or Bull Moose – Party, then ran against Taft and Woodrow Wilson for president in 1912. With Republicans effectively split, Wilson, a Democrat, won easily.
That rift endured for years. In the recent book “Colonel Roosevelt,” Edmund Morris wrote that Roosevelt referred to Taft as “a flubdub with a streak of the second-rate and the common in him, and he has not the slightest idea of what is necessary if this country is to make social and industrial progress.”
Taft and Roosevelt eventually reconciled. Ill and facing surgery, Roosevelt got a telegram from Taft in 1918. They met at a Chicago hotel a few months later and continued to communicate until Roosevelt’s death in January 1919.
Two years later, Taft was head of the Supreme Court. He would continue in that position for 8 1/2 years, until health forced him to resign in February 1930. Taft died a month later.
He much preferred his time there to the White House. But on a dreary day in late May 1916, William Howard Taft reveled on the campus of a college named after two of his presidential predecessors.