RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
[Illustration:
MRS. WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT
]
=Recollections of Full Years=
BY
MRS. WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT
[Illustration: Logo]
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK
=Dodd, Mead & Company=
1914
COPYRIGHT, 1914
BY THE BUTTERICK PUBLISHING CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1914
BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
FOREWORD
I wish to express my grateful acknowledgment to Eleanor Franklin Egan
and my daughter for their valued assistance in the preparation for
publication of these Recollections.
HELEN HERRON TAFT.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY 1
Cincinnati—City of Birth and Early Memories. Educational
and Musical Advantages. Childhood in Large Family on
Moderate Income. Meeting Mr. Taft—Political Turmoil. First
trip to Washington to visit President and Mrs. Hayes.
Social Gaieties and Serious Undertakings.
Engagement—Summer in the Adirondacks. Marriage—Trip
Abroad. Mr. Taft’s Father and Mother. First
home—“Satisfactory though Mortgaged.”
CHAPTER II
CINCINNATI AND WASHINGTON 21
The Superior Court—First Doubt as to Desirability of
Judicial Career. Mr. Taft’s Embarrassing Truthfulness. My
son Robert. Solicitor General—Move to Washington. Mr.
William M. Evarts. Washington Society Twenty-five Years
Ago. My Daughter Helen. The Federal Bench. Youngest Child.
Tranquil Years. The Cincinnati Orchestra. Spanish-American
War—Results to the Taft Family.
CHAPTER III
TO THE PHILIPPINES 39
The Second Philippine Commission. Army Transport
_Hancock_. Honolulu. “Aloha Oe!” Yokohama. Mr. Taft in a
Jinrikisha. His Size Interests the Japanese. Audience with
the Emperor and Empress of Japan—A Question of Clothes. I
Decide to Remain in Japan for the summer. The _Hancock_ to
Manila.
CHAPTER IV
IN JAPAN 65
Keeping House in Yokohama—In Quarantine with Measles. A
Japanese Ménage. Fascinating Oriental Sounds—Alluring
Shops. First Letter from Mr. Taft. A bit of Philippine
History. Miyanoshita—Japanese Inns—The Darkest Night. A
Refugee from China—Boxer Insurrection. Joseph did not
Commit Suicide; He was only Learning to Sing. More
Letters. Mr. Bryan’s Complicating Policy. To Manila.
CHAPTER V
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MANILA 91
The China Sea. Manila Bay—Strange Scenes and Strange
Peoples. First Home in Manila—“Getting Used” to my
Environment. Seventy Thousand American Troops. General
Arthur MacArthur—Social Coolness.
Intrigue—Assassinations—Problems. Progress of
Pacification. A Typhoon. American Presidential Campaign.
Civil and Military Rule. September first—The Commission
begins to Exercise Authority.
CHAPTER VI
A STRANGE ENVIRONMENT 118
_El costumbres del pais_—Employes and _Parientes_. A Pair
of Black Ponies—A Runaway—Filipino Coachmen. Charlie’s
Playmates. Shopping—Saloons. Manila Society. “He may be a
brother of William H. Taft, but he ain’t no friend of
mine!” A Filipino Call. Presents. American Patriotism.
Friars and Friars’ Lands. A Momentous Decision.
CHAPTER VII
DAYS OF THE EMPIRE 142
Unrest and Uncertainty—Guerilla Warfare. Re-election of
Mr. McKinley. Optimistic in the Face of Chaos.
Christmas—Eighty in the Shade. A New Year’s Reception—Silk
Hats and Frock Coats. The Federal Party and the Peace
Movement—Washington’s Birthday. First Visit to a
Provincial Town. Establishment of Civil Government. Mr.
Taft First Civil Governor.
CHAPTER VIII
AN HISTORIC TRIP 156
Through the Southern Islands. Establishing Provincial
Governments. A Test of Endurance—Filipino
Bands—_Banquetes_ and _Bailes_—the _Rigodon_. Moroland.
Aguinaldo—Colonel Frederick Funston of “the Suicide
Squad.” Zamboanga—Cottabato—the Gulf of Davao—Surigao—A
Perilous Journey. Cebu. Sorsogon—A Riot of Hospitality.
“The Sacred Torch of Liberty.”
CHAPTER IX
THE WILD MEN’S COUNTRY 182
Into Northern Luzon—the Wild Men’s Country. A Spanish
Steamer. General and Mrs. J. Franklin Bell. A Side Trip.
Impedimenta and Military Discipline. An Amazing Summit.
Where no White Woman ever was before Igorrotes—Human
Skulls as House Decorations—Rice Terraces. Down a Long
Trail. Baguio—Our $2,500,000 Road. Necessity for Haste.
CHAPTER X
GOVERNOR TAFT 206
The Inauguration of Governor Taft. Two Thousand Guests.
Moving to Malacañan Palace—Social Activities. The
Governor’s Working Day. General Chaffee—Continued
Differences of Opinion. General Corbin. The Assassination
of President McKinley—Dark Days. Mr. Taft and President
Roosevelt. Balangiga. A Trip to China—Mr. Taft Ill—Hurried
Return. Ordered Home on Leave—An Earthquake. We Sail on
Christmas Eve.
CHAPTER XI
A TRIP TO ROME 233
Some Unhappy Memories. Business in Washington—The Friar
Lands Question. A Mission to Rome. Left Behind but Follow
Shortly. Position and Character of
Commission—Complications and Embarrassments. Cardinal
Rampolla. Pope Leo XIII. A Brilliant Society. Vatican
Politics. An Audience with the Pope. Vallombrosa. Gifts
from the Pope. Unfinished Negotiations—Mr. Taft to Manila.
Switzerland.
CHAPTER XII
LAST DAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES 251
A Great Demonstration. Cholera—Rinderpest—Famine—Turmoil.
The Church Schism—Aglipay. Archbishop Guidi. Ladrones and
Assassins. Taft declines the Supreme Bench—Mr. Roosevelt
Insists—Popular Protest. A Letter from Mr. Roosevelt.
Called to Washington as Secretary of War. A Farewell
Fête—The Doge of Venice and his Lady—Regretful Good-byes.
CHAPTER XIII
SECRETARY OF WAR 274
Contrasted Attitudes—Guests of a Nation and “Just Nobody.”
Settling down in Washington—Difficulties in living up to
an Exalted Office—Life of a “Cabinet Lady.” The Panama
Canal—Trip to Panama. Mr. Taft, a Congressional Party and
Miss Alice Roosevelt. Summer in England. Intervention in
Cuba—“Those Awful Twenty Days.”
CHAPTER XIV
BUSY YEARS 302
“The Three Musketeers.” A Political Campaign—the Rush of
Life. The Supreme Bench again. A Presidential “Boom.” Mr.
Taft not Interested. I misunderstand Mr. Roosevelt. Athos
and Porthos. “Sitting on the Lid.” Agitated Days. Growing
Enthusiasm. Murray Bay. Starting Around the
World—Yellowstone Park—A Sunday game of Bridge. A Taste of
Campaign Work.
CHAPTER XV
A HURRIED TRIP AROUND THE WORLD 313
Japan—Shanghai—Manila. Opening of the first Philippine
Assembly. Trips and Entertainments. Vladivostok. Across
Siberia. Moscow—St. Petersburg—Berlin. A Shopping
Expedition and a Perilous Night. The Steamship _President
Grant_. Return to the United States. Nomination for the
Presidency—Political Campaign—Election.
CHAPTER XVI
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 324
The Evening of March Third, 1909. A Dinner Party at the
White House. A Stormy Night. Washington Ice-bound and
Isolated. “I always said it would be a cold day when I got
to be President of the United States.” The Inauguration.
At Home in the White House—A Brief Inspection—The McKim
Restoration. The Inaugural Ball—A Brilliant Scene. “Aunt
Delia.” The End of the Greatest Day.
CHAPTER XVII
THE WHITE HOUSE 347
Mistress of the White House—Domestic Responsibilities—Some
Innovations. The White House staff—Furniture and
Porcelains. The President’s Hospitality. A Diplomatic Tea.
Forms and Precedents. My First Dinner Party. Various
Entertainments. Potomac Drive. Delightful Spring Evenings.
The Charm of the Home of Presidents. A Passing Glimpse of
Mental Pictures.
CHAPTER XVIII
SOME WHITE HOUSE FORMALITIES 365
A Long Illness. Garden Parties—The First
Disappointment—Subsequent Success. The Nation’s Summer
Capital—A Question of Privacy—The Secret Service Men. The
Washington Social Season. State Dinners and Receptions.
First Cabinet Dinner. The New Year’s Reception. “Behind
the line.” Cutting down the Lists. The Diplomatic
Reception and Dinner. Serving Refreshments. Various
Demands.
CHAPTER XIX
CONCLUSION 382
Mr. Roosevelt Returns from Africa—Calls at Beverly—An
Agreeable Meeting. A Cruise on the _Mayflower_. The
President of Chili. A “Whirlwind” Existence. A Cabinet
House Party. Fitting Charlie out in Long Trousers. Helen’s
Début. Our Silver Wedding. Renomination. Plans for a Quiet
Future. An Expression from Mr. Taft.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Mrs. William Howard Taft _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Mrs. Taft’s childhood home on Pike Street, in Cincinnati 4
Mr. and Mrs. John Williamson Herron, Mrs. Taft’s father
and mother 8
Members of the salon. Mr. Taft in the centre with the
author at his right 12
Mr. and Mrs. William Howard Taft at the time of their
marriage 16
Mrs. Taft with Robert and Helen, when Mr. Taft was
Solicitor General 26
Charlie Taft when he went to the Philippines 36
Nikko. An ancient cryptomeria avenue and a glimpse of
the famous temples 52
Entrance to the Imperial Palace gardens in Tokyo 56
The State Dining-Room of the White House, showing
tapestry presented to Mrs. Taft by the Empress of
Japan 62
Helen Taft in Japanese costume 76
Mrs. Taft in formal Filipina costume 90
A carved _Nara_ or Philippine mahogany bed, now in Mr.
Taft’s room at New Haven 98
A typical Philippine river scene and some Filipino
laundry work 104
(_Left to right_) General Wright, Mr. Taft and Judge
Ide, as Philippine Commissioners 118
A typical Filipino menu and place card 148
Triumphal arch at Bataan 152
Filipino members of the organising party enjoying
afternoon repose on the deck of the _Sumner_ 158
The Sultan of Sulu boarding the _Sumner_, followed by
Mr. Arthur Fergusson, Spanish secretary to the
Commission 166
A Moro datu with his retinue, and the favourite wife of
a datu with her maids-in-waiting 170
Picturesque bead-bedecked Bogobos of the Davao country 176
Philippine non-Christians: A Bontoc Igorrote (_top
left_); a Moro and two Kalinga chiefs (_with shields_) 182
On the long trail in Northern Luzon. Mrs. Taft second
from the left 186
Mr. Taft and Charlie enjoying their favourite exercise 186
An Igorrote Head Dance and a company of _cargodores_
with their dogs which are to be killed for food 190
Views of the extraordinary Igorrote rice terraces.
Practically all of the wild men’s country is
cultivated in this manner 192
Igorrote chief proudly displaying his house decorations
of human skulls and carabao horns 196
Bontoc Igorrotes with _ganzas_ showing handles made of
human jaw bones 196
Benguet Road before and after completion. Not the most
thrilling curve on this spectacular highway 200
The Zigzag. How the Benguet Road climbs to an altitude
of over 5,000 feet in six miles 204
Mr. Taft taking the oath of office as first American
Governor of the Philippine Islands 208
Two views of Malacañan Palace. The first picture shows
the wide, roofless veranda over the Pásig River 214
Scenes attending Governor Taft’s arrival in Manila after
his first absence 250
Arch erected by the _Partido Federal_ representing
Filipina offering another star to the American flag 258
Mr. and Mrs. Taft with members of their family and staff
including Major Noble, aide (_at left_), and Mr. Fred
C. Carpenter, private secretary (_right_), in costumes
worn at the Venetian Carnival 270
Mr. Taft and Colonel Goethals, in Panama 290
(_From left to right_) Mrs. Jaime de Veyra, Mrs. Taft,
Governor Smith, Mrs. Smith, Mr. Taft, Mr. Sergio
Osmeña, Speaker of the Philippine Assembly, and
members of the Assembly in the Ayuntamiento, Manila 312
The White House as it looked on the evening of the
Fourth of March, 1909 324
Mr. and Mrs. Taft returning to the White House after Mr.
Taft’s inauguration 330
The private dining-room of the White House, and the
family sitting-room at the end of the long upstairs
corridor 334
Two White House bedrooms showing fine old colonial beds 338
Two corners of the White House kitchen 350
The East Room 356
Mrs. Taft on the Potomac Drive 360
The south Portico from the end of the garden 364
The White House garden and Washington’s Monument from
the south Portico 368
The Taft cottage at Beverly, Massachusetts 372
The crescent table in the State Dining-Room arranged for
the Diplomatic Dinner 376
Mrs. Taft’s own picture of the White House 380
The long eastern corridor through which guests arrive
for state functions 388
The main stairway leading to the President’s private
apartments 388
RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Cincinnati, the city of my birth and early memories, was, in the
‘sixties, about as begrimed and noisy and altogether unattractive as any
place well could be; yet it possessed certain attributes which really
entitled it to the proud designation of “The Queen City of the West.”
It was prosperous; it had hardly yet been surpassed in prosperity by
Chicago; Cleveland was not even spoken of as a rival; and in many ways
it was the most important centre west of New York and east of the
Mississippi.
It owed its early development principally to its advantageous location.
It lay on the great central route from the East to the West, which runs
from Baltimore and Washington to Cumberland and over the Alleghenies to
Pittsburg, thence by the Ohio River to Cincinnati and on west to St.
Louis and south to New Orleans. It had an important trade with New
Orleans and drew commerce from a large territory to the north. But
whatever else may be said of it, its most devoted citizen could not
claim that Cincinnati was beautiful. Its buildings were unlovely; its
streets were badly paved and as badly kept; and it lay under a pall of
soft coal smoke which left its sooty mark upon everything—inhabitants
included.
Yet, ugly as it was, the city boasted an unusual society. During the
first half of the nineteenth century many young men of good stock and
great ability, drawn by the promise of rapid advancement, had moved to
Cincinnati from all parts of the East and South; New Jersey, New
England, Virginia and Kentucky contributing, perhaps, the greatest
number. There were many families of wealth and culture which, without
parade or display, maintained fine homes and dispensed a generous
hospitality. The suburbs, East Walnut Hills, Mt. Auburn and Clifton, on
the heights to the north and east, were famous for their beautiful
country places.
Then there was a large population of the best class of Germans, many of
whom were university men who left their own country after the Revolution
of 1848 and came to Cincinnati to settle. Of these, Frederick Hassaurek,
General Willich and Judge Stallo, who came to Cincinnati when Carl
Schurz went to St. Louis, are perhaps the most prominent. The German
influence upon the community was marked. It made for a more liberal
Sunday; it brought the study of German into the public schools; and it
developed a strong taste for good music. Indeed, the musical advantages
of Cincinnati in my girlhood were better than those of any city in the
United States, with the exception of New York or Boston. Theodore Thomas
was president of the Conservatory of Music and he organised a symphony
orchestra which he continued to direct until he went to Chicago along
about 1890.
Cincinnati in those days, with her educated, wealthy and public-spirited
society, was much in advance of any other city in the Mississippi Valley
in culture and refinement. There was great interest in schools of all
sorts and in every kind of intellectual activity. Away back in 1848 the
Literary Club of Cincinnati was formed by a company of men among whom
were both Mr. Taft’s father and mine, as well as Rutherford B. Hayes,
Stanley Matthews, Manning F. Force and Mr. Spofford, later Librarian of
Congress. This club continues to be a cherished institution and in my
girlhood it was the centre of all interest in literature and
intellectual pursuits.
My father, John Williamson Herron, was a graduate of Miami University at
Oxford, Ohio, and was in college with Benjamin Harrison. He was for
fifty years a trustee of that institution and was devoted to its
interests. My husband’s father, Judge Alphonso Taft, was one of the Yale
class of 1833, was for many years a member of the Yale Corporation, and
had five sons who graduated at that university. My mother’s brother,
Judge Isaac Clinton Collins, and one of my two brothers also graduated
at Yale, while my other brother graduated at Harvard, so it will be seen
that both my husband and I grew up in the midst of strong collegiate
traditions.
To write about one’s childhood is not easy. Memories by the score come
flocking up, but, dear as they are, upon examination they turn out to be
quite commonplace and hardly worth relating. My memories are not
sufficiently “early” to have any special value. The first thing that I
dimly remember is sitting on the front steps of my home watching some
sort of parade in which there were many soldiers, but I was too young
then to know that it was a peace celebration I was witnessing at the
close of the Civil War.
My father was a lawyer who came to the bar of Ohio in the ’forties. He
was United States Attorney under President Harrison, was a State
Senator, and twice declined appointments to the Bench because the salary
attached to these positions was not enough to support his large family.
I was the fourth in a family of eleven, eight girls and three boys. One
boy and two girls died before I can remember.
Our house was one of a block of grey brick houses in Pike Street, at the
east end of Cincinnati, which, at that time, was the fashionable
residence section of the city. Pike Street runs down to the river on a
rather steep incline and, as it was paved with cobblestones, my early
memories are somewhat marred by an impression of the frequent clatter
and clang of heavy wagons pulling their way up the hill from the river
landing.
While our house was not particularly distinguished, being much like
those on either side of it, across the street from us there were two
very striking and imposing residences which lent distinction to the
neighbourhood, and in which, as I grew up, were formed the pleasantest
associations of my life. The one directly opposite was a large, square,
red brick house which had an air of great dignity. It was the home of
Mr. Larz Anderson. There were ten boys in the Anderson family and,
though they were all much older than I and most of them had gone away
before I grew up, I remember that it was a very lively household always.
In my later girlhood we were specially linked to this family by the
marriage of one of the boys, Charles, to my sister Jennie.
The house next to Mr. Anderson’s, on the north, I knew as the Sinton
home. A low, colonial structure, well set in a garden of green lawns and
finely kept shrubbery, it is still one of the most beautiful residences
in Cincinnati, and, indeed, in the whole country. Its architecture
suggests that of the White House and it was, as a matter of fact,
designed by the same architect, an Irishman named Hoban. The Sinton
house is lower than the White House, being only one story high with a
basement, but it has the same classic outlines and it bears, moreover,
the stamp of time, which gives it a character all its own.
It was built about 1800 by a Mr. Martin Baum, but was purchased by the
first Nicholas Longworth in the early part of the century and was the
home of the Longworth family for a generation. Long before I can
remember, it was bought by Mr. David Sinton, one of the most successful
business men in Ohio, and to me it was always the Sinton home. When I
was about twelve years old, Mr. Sinton’s daughter Annie married my
husband’s brother, Charles P. Taft, and as they have always lived in
this old house it has come to be known, since Mr. Sinton’s death in
1901, as the Taft house. It is the only Taft house in Cincinnati now,
the house where my husband was born having been sold after his father’s
death, and it has been the scene of many of the most important events of
my life. It was there that my husband received the announcement of his
nomination for the Presidency; it was there, in front of the house, that
he made his speech of acceptance; and it was there that Charles Taft
gathered a large party of friends on the night of November 6, 1908, to
receive with us the election returns. And it is now to this house, where
my husband’s brother Charles and his wife dispense a generous
hospitality, that we always go when we return to Cincinnati.
[Illustration:
MRS. TAFT’S CHILDHOOD HOME ON PIKE STREET, IN CINCINNATI
]
My girlhood days were spent quite placidly in Miss Nourse’s school,
which was known in Cincinnati as “The Nursery,” and where all the girls
of the Herron family, as well as Mr. Taft’s only sister, Fanny, received
their education. Miss Nourse was a Maine woman with a thorough New
England education and with a thoroughly New England idea of imparting
it. She insisted, especially, upon languages and literature. Much of my
time, outside of that taken up in regular school work, I devoted to the
study of music, and I practised my scales on the family piano with such
persistence that I wonder the whole neighbourhood did not rebel. Music
was the absorbing interest of my life in those days, the inspiration of
all my dreams and ambitions.
Our house was none too large for the family, but as there was a wide
difference in our ages it happened that my oldest sister was married
while my youngest sister was still a baby in long clothes. Then, the
boys went away to college and were gone the better part of each year, so
it was not often that we were all at home together. Nevertheless, we had
our share of the happy-go-lucky and somewhat crowded existence of a
large family on a moderate income.
My mother was Harriet Collins, and when she was seventeen years old she
came with her mother to Cincinnati, from Lowville, New York, to live
with her brother, Judge Collins, who was my father’s law partner and
continued to be so for more than forty years. Her father, Eli Collins,
was a Member of Congress from the Lowville district of New York. My
mother was in many ways a remarkable, as well as a most attractive,
woman. She had an exceedingly keen wit and a mind alert to the humour in
every situation. With so many children to nurse, to scold, to sew for
and, sometimes, to cook for—in a word, to bring up on a small income—she
would seem to have had little time for outside interests; but she was
very popular in society and I remember that in her busiest years she
went out a great deal. She had a stimulating personality and I do know
that she made her family circle a very amusing and interesting one in
which to grow up.
The only incident of my girlhood which was in any way unusual was my
first visit to the White House as a guest of President and Mrs. Hayes.
Mr. and Mrs. Hayes and my father and mother had been lifelong friends.
Mr. Hayes was, at one time, a partner in my father’s law firm. They had
been closely associated for a great many years and had a very warm
regard for each other. My youngest sister was born shortly after the
election of Mr. Hayes, was named Lucy Hayes Herron, after Mrs. Hayes,
and was taken to the White House to be christened. My mother paid
several visits to the White House and after my sister Jennie was married
Mrs. Hayes invited her and Mr. Anderson to stay a week with her and, to
my intense excitement, she added that she would like to have me
accompany them. I was seventeen years old; I had never been to
Washington and to me it was a very important event. I was not “out,” so
I couldn’t spend my time in the White House as I would have liked, in
going to brilliant parties and meeting all manner of charming people,
but, fortunately for my peace of mind, the Hayes lived very quietly, so
it was not so trying to have to devote myself to seeing the sights of
the Capital like any other tourist.
I didn’t meet my husband until I was eighteen years old. We had been
born and brought up in the same town; our fathers were warm friends and
had practised law at the same bar for more than forty years; during that
time our mothers had exchanged visits, and my sister Maria and Fanny
Taft were schoolmates and close companions at Miss Nourse’s, but the
Tafts lived at Mt. Auburn, a hill suburb of Cincinnati, and after Will
finished Woodward High School he went for four years to Yale, so it is
not at all surprising that we did not meet.
Judge Alphonso Taft was Secretary of War, and later Attorney General, in
Grant’s Cabinet while his son Will was at college, but before the latter
graduated, the family had returned to Cincinnati, so he came straight
home and entered at once upon a law course in the Cincinnati Law School.
It was at that time, when he was still a student and working as a law
reporter on the Cincinnati _Commercial_, that I met him. It was at a
coasting party one winter’s night, I remember very well, when I went
with a party of young people, including the Charles Tafts, to coast down
a fine steep hill in Mt. Auburn. Will Taft was there, and after being
introduced to me he took me down the hill on his big bobsled. After that
we met very frequently.
A small circle of us went in for amateur theatricals with much
enthusiasm and great earnestness. We launched ourselves in our
histrionic careers in “She Stoops to Conquer” which we gave at the house
of one of the company. Then came “A Scrap of Paper” in Mrs. Charles
Taft’s drawing room, in which both Will and I took part. We had become
very ambitious by this time and sent all the way to New York for a
professional stage-manager to help us with the production. But it turned
out a most nervous occasion. We were all overtrained, I suppose. One
thing after another went wrong until at the crisis of the play, where
the hero is supposed to find in the barrel of a gun the scrap of paper
upon which the whole plot hinges, the amateur hero looked pretty foolish
when he discovered there wasn’t any gun. Another one of the company, in
a fit of absentmindedness, no doubt due to overwrought nerves, had
carried it off the stage, and just when the situation was getting tragic
for the hero the culprit came creeping back with it and carefully put it
where it belonged, for all the world as if he thought he were making
himself invisible to the audience.
But our ardour was not dampened. I remember Mr. Taft especially in a
burlesque of “The Sleeping Beauty,” which, in its legitimate form, had
been produced for charity at Pike’s Opera House. The Unity Club, a most
respectable organization of the young men of the Unitarian Church,
decided to give their version of the same story, and it was a huge
success. Mr. Taft played the title rôle and his brother Horace, who is
six feet four in his stocking feet, shared with the Beauty the honours
of the evening as a most enchanting Puck.
Then we had parties in the country, too. Many of our friends had country
places that spread along the Madison Road and the Grandin Road on East
Walnut Hills, and two of my closest friends lived out there in a great
house, looking down over the majestic but tawny Ohio River, above the
point where the sweeping curve begins that carries it by the
amphitheatre in which the business part of the city is built. It was a
long distance to East Walnut Hills and in my girlhood we had to go the
greater part of the way in a clumsy old omnibus that clumped along over
the unpaved roads at the rate of about three miles an hour. But such
little inconveniences didn’t trouble us, and many were the vaudeville
and charade parties that we had, there being enough “talent” among us to
get up an amusing performance at a moment’s notice.
[Illustration:
MR. AND MRS. JOHN WILLIAMSON HERRON, MRS. TAFT’S FATHER AND MOTHER
]
But in spite of all this gaiety, Mr. Taft was making very satisfactory
progress in his career. As a law reporter he showed his growing interest
in the public welfare by meeting certain elements in Cincinnati politics
with vigorous denunciation. There was a man named Tom Campbell, a clever
criminal lawyer, who had something more than a suspicion against him of
bribery and corruption of both witnesses and juries, and he had
succeeded in organising a political machine that was running the town
according to his directions.
Campbell was counsel for the defence in what was known as the Hoffman
case and was strongly suspected of tampering with the jury, and Mr. Taft
in reporting the case, took special pains to bring out all the fine
points in the lawyer’s character and methods, telling the truth as he
saw it.
This brought him into association with Mr. Miller Outcalt, the Assistant
Prosecuting Attorney, who represented the State in the Hoffman case, and
when Mr. Outcalt succeeded by election to the position of prosecuting
attorney he offered the place of assistant to Mr. Taft, although he had
been at the bar not more than seven months. Mr. Taft served in this
office for fourteen months and the experience he had in the
rough-and-ready practice in criminal trials, in preparing cases for
trial, in examining witnesses, in making arguments to the court and in
summing up to the jury, was the most valuable experience he could
possibly have in fitting him for trial work at the bar.
But this experience was shortened by a circumstance not of his seeking.
Major Benjamin Butterworth was the Congressman from one of the
Cincinnati districts in President Arthur’s administration, and the
President being anxious to relieve the Collector of Internal Revenue,
called on Major Butterworth to suggest the name of another man. Major
Butter worth had been for a long time a warm friend of Mr. Taft, thought
he had a good family name and was too young in politics to have many
political enemies, so he suggested him and wrote to urge him to accept
the appointment which the President immediately offered to him. He
accepted the place and held it for a year, but it proved a serious
interruption in his legal career. He resigned as soon as it was possible
and began practice with Major H. P. Lloyd who had been his father’s
partner before he went to Vienna.
Mr. Taft went abroad in the summer of 1883 to visit Judge and Mrs. Taft
in Vienna, and it was about this time, when we had all spent several
years in frivolities, that several of us became very serious-minded and
decided that we must have something by way of occupation more satisfying
than dancing and amateur theatricals. I secured a position as school
teacher and taught for two years, first at Madame Fredin’s and then at
White and Sykes, both private schools out on Walnut Hills. Then, with
two of my intimate friends, I decided to start a “salon.” We called it a
“salon” because we planned to receive a company who were to engage in
what we considered brilliant discussion of topics intellectual and
economic, and we decided that our gathering should include only
specially invited guests. Among these were the two Taft brothers, Will
and Horace, and other men common friends of us all.
In view of the fact that two marriages resulted from this salon, Mr.
Taft has suggested ulterior motives on the part of those who got it up,
but there was no truth in the charge. We were simply bent on “improving
our minds” in the most congenial atmosphere we could create, and if our
discussions at the salon usually turned upon subjects of immediate
personal interest, to the neglect of the abstruse topics we had selected
for debate, it was because those subjects were just then claiming the
attention of the whole community.
Cincinnati, thanks to the activities of Tom Campbell and his followers,
was then in a tangle of political mismanagement of a particularly
vicious character, and our little circle developed a civic spirit which
kept us alive to local interests to the exclusion, for the time being,
of everything else. Mr. Taft was intimately connected with the reform
movement, and in all its phases, through comedy and tragedy,
disappointment and elation, we fought it out at our salon meetings with
such high feeling and enthusiasm that its history became the history of
our lives during that period.
Then came the famous Berner case. This was in 1884. Berner had committed
a deliberate murder of an unusually appalling nature and with robbery as
the motive, and there was great excitement about it. Campbell became his
counsel and, in a trial which held the attention of the community while
it lasted, he succeeded in getting the man off for manslaughter when the
unanimous opinion was that he should have been hanged. Nobody could see
how an honest jury could have rendered any other verdict. There was
intense indignation throughout the city and a meeting was called to
denounce Campbell as an embracer of juries and a suborner of perjury.
On the evening when the meeting to denounce Campbell was called we were
having a session of the salon and our whole discussion was of the
possible developments which might grow out of the infamous Berner trial.
We were greatly excited about it. I remember the evening distinctly
because of the terrible things that happened. We were disturbed by a
great commotion in the street and we sallied forth in a body to see what
it was all about.
The mass meeting was held at Music Hall and was presided over by Dr.
Kemper, a very effective speaker. The crowd was angry and quickly passed
the condemnatory resolutions which were framed. But with all the
indignation and resentment everything might have been carried out quite
calmly had not the match been applied to the powder. Just as the meeting
was breaking up somebody shouted:
“Let’s go down to the jail and take Berner out!”
It was an appeal to the mob spirit which responds so readily in an angry
crowd; they went; and of course the worst elements immediately came to
the top. They attacked the jail, which was in the rear of the court
house, but were held back until the militia, which had been instantly
summoned, arrived. Then they went around to the front and set fire to
the court house. With the streets packed with raging humanity it was not
possible to fight the fire and the building was completely destroyed.
The militia charged the mob and this inspired somebody with the idea of
raiding a gun store and seizing arms and ammunition with which to make a
resistance. The idea caught on and spread rapidly. One place attacked
was Powell’s gun shop near Fourth and Main. But Powell, either
forewarned or foreseeing some such development, had quietly made
preparations to meet it. He lighted up the front of the store as
brightly as he could, then, with two or three other men who were expert
shots, he put himself behind a barricade in the rear. The mob came on
and as the ringleaders broke into the shop they were picked off by the
men behind the barricade and killed in their tracks. Four or five of
them went down in a heap and the crowd behind them, not expecting such a
reception, instantly was brought to its senses. This was in April, 1884.
Such an outbreak was a disgrace to the city of Cincinnati, but it had
the effect of bringing the Campbell controversy to a head. A bar
committee of ten men, of which both my father and Mr. Taft were members,
was formed to see what could be done to rid the community of the evil
reputation it had acquired. This committee made a thorough investigation
of Campbell’s character and record, prepared charges against him and,
with my father as chairman, presented them, in June, 1884, to the
district court of three judges, and asked a hearing and Campbell’s
disbarment if the charges were proved.
[Illustration:
MEMBERS OF THE SALON. MR. TAFT IN THE CENTER, WITH THE AUTHOR AT HIS
RIGHT
]
Campbell had been indicted on a criminal charge of attempting to bribe a
man called on the Berner jury and the prosecutor in this case was our
intimate friend and associate, Mr. Rufus Smith, who had been in Europe
with Mr. Taft the year before. The jury hung, eight to four, although
the evidence was strong against the defendant. This fanned the flames of
popular resentment and I don’t suppose our little salon was the only
place in Cincinnati where Campbell was carefully retried and convicted.
In this criminal case Mr. Foraker, who shortly afterward became Governor
of Ohio, was counsel for Campbell.
The disbarment hearing was set for the following November and some six
months was thus given for taking the depositions of non-resident
witnesses. Mr. Kittredge and Mr. Ramsey, leaders of the bar, were
retained as senior counsel for the committee, and Mr. Taft and Mr. John
Holmes, a warm friend of ours, were junior counsel and were directed to
prepare the evidence. In this work Mr. Taft and Mr. Holmes went all over
the country taking depositions and we kept in constant touch with them.
All the members of the committee expected to have their reputations
assailed, being perfectly certain that Campbell would not hesitate at
any measure he might be able to take to discredit them, but they went
ahead nevertheless.
When the trial came on Mr. Ramsey, of the senior counsel, expected to
open the case, but he became quite seriously ill and was confined to his
house for days. Through his unexpected absence, the duty of making the
opening statement fell to Mr. Taft. He was taken completely by surprise,
but he rose to the opportunity, which was certainly a splendid one for a
man so young. He had then been at the bar only four years, but having
assisted throughout in the preparation of the evidence he knew the case
from beginning to end and he made a speech which lasted four hours and a
half. Mr. Taft thinks this was an opportunity improved which had an
important influence on his career. The special part it played in his
subsequent promotion I shall speak of.
The result in the Campbell case was at first disappointing because the
Court which heard the disbarment charges found Campbell guilty only on
minor charges and, by a vote of two to one acquitted him on those which
would have required his disbarment. But the public disapproval of the
Court’s decision and the moral effect of the proceedings drove Campbell
from the city and the State and accomplished the purpose of the bar
association.
The Campbell trial was finished in December, 1884, and in January, 1885,
Mr. Rufus Smith, an old and intimate friend, entered the office of
County Solicitor and tendered to Mr. Taft the place of Assistant County
Solicitor. The advantage of this office was that it paid $2500 a year
and that, while he acted as counsel for the county, he still was able to
continue the general practice of law with his partner, Major Lloyd.
Mr. Taft and I were engaged in May, 1885, and were married in June of
the following year.
In the summer of 1885 my mother, moved I think by some sentimental
attachment to the scenes of her childhood, decided that she would take
us all up into the Adirondacks, to a little camp near Lowville. My two
older sisters were married so there were only six of us left in the
family, but we were still something of a handful to move in a body.
However, my mother was equal to it. We packed almost a van load of
trunks and set out, and one evening we arrived, over the worst corduroy
road that was ever laid down, at a little cottage beside a beautiful
lake in a setting of pine-clad hills. The scenery indeed was most
satisfactory, but the cottage was so small that the family more than
strained its capacity. Then we took our meals at a sort of boarding
house called Fenton’s, where the only thing on the bill of fare was
fresh beef. I like what is known as “roughing it” as well as anybody,
but even the superlative appetite produced by outdoor living demands
some variety; and variety we did not get.
Mr. Taft had elected to remain in Cincinnati all summer and save money.
It was a Spartan resolution and we all applauded it, but he probably
found Lowville a long way from Pike Street; and I certainly thought
Mother was sacrificing a good deal for the sake of renewing the memories
of her youth. However, the days went on, while the fresh beef grew less
and less tempting.
I had written Mr. Taft something about the Fenton fare and he, wanting
very much to join us, but having no excuse for breaking his admirable
resolution to remain in Cincinnati, hit upon the only plan for escaping
comment on his lack of fortitude. He went down to Peeble’s, a fancy
grocer, and selecting a box as big as a Saratoga trunk, ordered it
filled with every kind of delicacy he could think of or have pointed out
to him and brought it with him to Lowville.
We went rowing on the lake about sundown the evening he arrived, and
right in the middle of a fine long stroke he suddenly dropped his oars,
reached in his pocket and drew out a letter. He laughed a little when he
handed it to me, then picking up his oars he rowed on without a word.
The letter was from his father.
Judge Taft was at this time Minister to St. Petersburg, having been
transferred from Vienna. Will had written him about his engagement and
about his plan to remain in town all summer and devote himself strictly
to business and the accumulation of funds; and this was the answer.
There were a lot of nice complimentary things about me, with the warmest
congratulations and good wishes; then the letter closed by saying: “I am
very much pleased with your decision to remain in Cincinnati this
summer. I myself have found it not at all bad if you take care of
yourself, and there is no doubt that during the quiet months one can
make and save considerable money by staying at home. I congratulate you
on your strength of character.” We really had a delightful summer at
Fenton’s after that.
My father had given me a very nice lot at the end of McMillan Street on
the site of an old quarry, which commanded a fine view of the Ohio River
and the surrounding country, and Mr. Taft and I determined to build a
house on it which should be ready for us when we got back from our
wedding trip. So the winter before our marriage was filled with
architects’ plans, contractors’ estimates and all the other fascinating
details of building, and we thought that we had finally settled upon a
design that met with every requirement of good taste and modern comfort.
For our wedding trip, we went abroad, and I had my first taste of the
foreign travel of which I had always dreamed. We crossed on the _City of
Chester_ which was the oldest, and therefore the cheapest ship of the
Inman line. We chose her for the simple reason that her rates accorded
with our means, but we found, much to our astonishment, that we were the
only people on board who had deliberately selected her. Everybody else
had been forced to take her because of some emergency or some mishap.
One man had to miss the _Germanic_ in order to give his dentist time to
relieve a very troublesome tooth. Another man was called to court just
as he was about to board the _Britannic_. Those were the proud ships of
the Atlantic in those days and it was not at all difficult to understand
why anybody should prefer them to the _City of Chester_, but it amused
us greatly to hear the shamefaced excuses of our fellow passengers. My
husband and I were not ashamed, nor were we so particular about our
comforts that we did not thoroughly enjoy ourselves. Besides, we had the
gratifying consciousness of the money which the low rates had left in
our pockets to be spent much more profitably abroad.
[Illustration:
MR. AND MRS. WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT AT THE TIME OF THEIR MARRIAGE
]
The trip was full of interest to us both. We spent the greater part of
the summer in England and saw the sights of London and the cathedral
towns in great detail. Our only trip on the Continent was through
Holland to Paris. I remember that in Amsterdam I bought some old and
rather large Delft plates. They wouldn’t go into any trunk we had, so I
had them carefully packed in a wicker hamper and this article became
thereafter a part of our hand luggage, and was the occasion for a
decided disagreement between my husband and me as to what the true
object of travel was. He used to say that he “toted that blamed thing
all around Europe and after all it arrived in Cincinnati with its
contents in small pieces.” Which was true. He had “toted” it all around
Europe, but when we arrived in New York I entrusted it to an express
company with the result that when we opened it we found its contents in
such a condition that only an accomplished porcelain mender could put a
sufficient number of pieces together to make what my husband always
afterward referred to as “the memento of our first unpleasantness.”
Our trip from Cincinnati to Cincinnati took just one hundred days and
cost us just one thousand dollars, or five dollars a day each. I venture
to say that could not be done nowadays, even by as prudent a pair as we
were.
During a subsequent trip abroad, two years later, I was able to indulge
my desire to hear music. We went to Beyreuth, to the Wagner festival,
and heard _Parsifal_ and _The Meistersingers_ gloriously rendered; after
which we went to Munich and attended operas and concerts until Mr. Taft
rebelled. He said that he enjoyed a certain amount of music just as much
as anybody, but that he did want to get something more out of European
travel than a nightly opera and a daily symphony.
So—we went to Italy and saw Rome and Florence in true Baedecker style.
When we arrived in Rome we opened our Baedecker and read that there was
almost no foundation for Rome’s awful reputation as an unhealthy place.
“Rome is a very healthy place,” said Baedecker, “at all times of the
year except the first two weeks in August, when a visit there is
attended with risk.” We had arrived for the first two weeks in August!
When we came home from our wedding trip we found that our house was not
yet completed, so we went to stay with Judge and Mrs. Taft for a month
at the old house in Mt. Auburn. It was a nice old place, with about
three acres of ground, but the air around it was just about as sooty as
if it had been located down under the factory chimneys. Mt. Auburn is on
a sort of promontory which juts out into the city; it is on a level with
the tops of the smoke stacks and it catches all the soot that the air
can carry that far.
Judge and Mrs. Taft had come home from their European mission in time
for our wedding. Judge Taft had been ill in St. Petersburg and had given
his family a great deal of anxiety, but he was now settled down to the
business of quiet recuperation and the enjoyment of well-earned rest.
My husband’s father was “gentle” beyond anything I ever knew. He was a
man of tremendous firmness of purpose and just as set in his views as
any one well could be, but he was one of the most lovable men that ever
lived because he had a wide tolerance and a strangely “understanding
sympathy” for everybody. He had a great many friends, and to know him
was to know why this was so.
Mr. Taft’s mother, though more formal, was also very kindly and made my
visit to her home as a bride full of pleasure. The two, the father and
mother, had created a family atmosphere in which the children breathed
in the highest ideals, and were stimulated to sustained and strenuous
intellectual and moral effort in order to conform to the family
standard. There was marked serenity in the circle of which Judge and
Mrs. Taft were the heads. They had an abiding confidence in the future
of their children which strongly influenced the latter to justify it.
They both had strong minds, intellectual tastes, wide culture and
catholic sympathies.
Not long after we arrived my husband came to me one day with an air of
great seriousness, not to say of conciliation and said:
“Nellie, Father has got himself into rather a difficulty and I hope I
can rely on you to help him out—not make it too hard for him, you
know,—make him feel as comfortable about it as you can. The truth is he
used to have a messenger at the War Department in Washington whom he was
very fond of. He was a bright man—colored, of course—and he was very
devoted to Father. Now this man called on Father down town to-day. He’s
here on a private car and Father says he’s made a great success as a
porter. Father got to talking to him, and there were lots of things they
wanted to talk about, and besides the man said he would like very much
to see Mother,—and Father, who was just about ready to come home to
lunch said—right on the spur of the moment—you understand he didn’t
think anything about it—he said to this man, ‘Come on home and have
lunch with us.’ He’s downstairs now. Father came to me and said he had
just realised that it was something of a difficulty and that he was
sorry. He said that he could take care of Mother if I could take care of
you. So I hope you won’t mind.”
As soon as I could control my merriment caused by this halting and very
careful explanation, I went down to luncheon. I didn’t mind and Will’s
mother didn’t mind, but the expression on the face of Jackson, the negro
butler, was almost too much for my gravity. I will say that the porter
had excellent manners and the luncheon passed off without excitement.
We made a short visit at my mother’s on Pike Street before we moved into
our new house on McMillan Street; but we began the year of 1887 under
our own roof which, though it was mortgaged, was to us, for the time
being, most satisfactory.