BUSY YEARS
These were the days when Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Root and Mr. Taft were known
and very aptly caricatured as “The Three Musketeers,” a thing which both
pleased and amused them. Mr. Roosevelt was, of course, D’Artagnan, Mr.
Root was Athos and Mr. Taft was Porthos, and they worked together in
such harmony and with such high mutual regard as one remembers now with
singular satisfaction.
Mr. Hearst was running against Mr. Hughes for Governor of New York, and
the situation in Idaho, complicated by the murder of Governor
Steunenberg and the activities of the anarchistic element in the Western
Federation of Miners, seemed also to demand special attention from the
Administration, so Mr. Root was delegated to “hurl the spear of
civilisation and right thinking” in New York, while Mr. Taft was sent
into the West with Idaho as the climax of his itinerary.
All this had been arranged for him while he was away on the mission of
averting disaster in Cuba, and when he returned to Washington he had
just time, as he expressed it, “to pack the War Department into a
suitcase” before he was off on a speech-making trip which took him from
Baltimore through Ohio, Illinois, Nebraska, Wyoming and Idaho and back
through Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Orleans to Washington, with only
such time for preparation of speeches as he could get on the trains
between stops.
His letters to me were dictated to his stenographer, and in re-reading
them I get the impression that I was made the victim of his thinking
processes since he poured into them all the politics and the turmoil of
the hour, together with lengthy comments which kept me very much alive
with interest in the campaign in which he was engaged.
About this time there appeared in the New York _Sun_ an editorial which
pleased me and which expressed the rush of our lives with singular
vividness. It said in part:
Merely to record the movements and missions of the Secretary of War
requires a nimble mind. He journeys from Washington to Manila to
reassure ten millions of natives restive under an experimental scheme
of civil government and turns up in Panama to speed the digging of the
Isthmian Canal. To give a fillip to a campaign for reform in some
western State, or direct the southern Republicans in the way they
should go, or enlighten the people Down East as to the President’s
home policy, or illuminate the recesses of a problem in jurisdiction
for the benefit of a bar association, is only a matter of grabbing a
time table and throwing a change of clothing into a travelling bag.
Such are mere relaxations and holiday jaunts for the Hon. William H.
Taft.
A Cuban revolution would be a poser to most statesmen, and to an
ordinary Secretary of War a labour of Hercules; but to the business of
bringing peace with honour to a distracted land, deposing one
government and setting up another, meanwhile gratifying everybody and
winning the esteem of the fiercest warrior, Mr. Taft devotes only one
page of the Calendar and takes ship for the States to resume his
routine duties as if he had done nothing out of the common.
But routine duties in Washington do not hold him long. An itinerary is
made up for him and he plunges into the stress and turmoil of a
political campaign. He is to make speeches in Ohio and Illinois, and
Idaho claims him too. From Havana to Pocatello is something of a
change and a far cry, but it is all in the day’s work for William H.
Taft ... all nice problems look alike to the Secretary of War who
should be called the Secretary of Peace, so uniform is his success in
smoothing the wrinkled front of conflict and making two laughs echo
where one groan was heard before.
No emergency, no exigency can put the Hon. William H. Taft down. With
a heart for any fate, buoyant as hope, versatile as the kaleidoscope,
indefatigable as fate and indomitable as victory, he is a most amazing
and effective Secretary of War. “Cabinet help” when William H. Taft is
the instrument and medium, is tantamount to the energy and force of a
whole Administration. Yet there are those who would circumscribe his
activities by investing him with the robes and immobile dignity of
judicial office.
This subject of my husband’s appointment to the Supreme Bench cropped up
with what seemed to me to be rather annoying frequency. While we were in
Cuba it was rumoured that he would be asked to fill the vacancy created
by the retirement of Justice Brown, but the report correctly stated that
he would be likely to refuse the appointment because of the rapidly
developing possibility that he would be the Republican nominee for the
Presidency the following year.
At this time Mr. Taft was all but impervious to any friendly advice
which, being followed, would have tended to enhance his own political
advantage. He was not playing politics for himself; he was attending
strictly to business, fully imbued with the conviction that the public
desired a continuation of the Administration as it stood. Mr.
Roosevelt’s personal popularity could not be denied nor in any way
belittled, but he had already announced that he was not a candidate for
a third term, and all over the country the party was organising to
support Mr. Taft, while a number of other names were prominently
mentioned as “possibilities.” Mr. Roosevelt had assured my husband that
he could count on his support, and he also urged him to lose no
opportunity to give personal encouragement and impetus to the campaign
that was being started in his behalf. But Mr. Taft paid very little
attention, and never did he cease to regard a Supreme Court appointment
as vastly more desirable than the Presidency. If his letters of that
period could be read it would readily be seen that he was a most
difficult candidate for his loyal and eager supporters to manage.
About this time, in conversation with Mr. Roosevelt in respect to Mr.
Taft’s candidacy, I got the impression that he was discouraged over my
husband as a candidate because he had avoided co-operation with certain
political organisations in the West, and, further, that Mr. Roosevelt
thought he might have to join with other Republicans in supporting
Governor Hughes, because Mr. Taft was such a poor politician.
I reported this to Mr. Taft and urged him to display a little more
enthusiasm on his own account, but in reply I got a good-natured
reminder that there was “plenty of time,” together with an analysis of
the public feeling which, he decided, was not running in his favour at
all. He wrote to Mr. Roosevelt:
Mrs. Taft writes me that you are disposed to lecture me for not being
more cordial in co-operation with some of my ... friends who want to
organise a campaign for me for the presidential nomination. I told
them just exactly what the fact was and nothing more, and I don’t find
myself equal to becoming part of any organisation of that sort. The
truth is in ... and some of the other States, if a man does not join
in a way as to imply a kind of obligation to look after these people,
should success follow, there is no particular enthusiasm in his
favour, and in my state of indifference about it the organisation is
not likely to follow me.
Mrs. Taft said that you said you might have to support Hughes for the
presidency. If you do you may be sure that you will awaken no feeling
of disappointment on my part. While I very much appreciate your
anxiety that I shall be nominated, and regard it as the highest
compliment possible to me, and as a most gratifying evidence of your
good will, you know what my feeling has been in respect to the
presidency, and can understand that it will not leave the slightest
trace of disappointment should you change your views and think it wise
to make a start in any other direction.
In Mr. Roosevelt’s reply to Mr. Taft, he said I had misunderstood him,
that what he had said was that Mr. Taft must not be too entirely aloof
because if he were it might dishearten his supporters and put all
Republicans in such shape that some man like Governor Hughes, or more
probably some man from the West, would turn up with so much popular
sentiment behind him that there would be no course open but to support
him.
The 1905 campaign was a hotly contested one. The Republicans won in New
York and Idaho, and generally, I believe, though I remember those two
States especially, and I find Mr. Taft writing to Mr. Root from Ft.
Leavenworth, Kansas, on his way back from Boise City:
_Dear Athos_:
I saw a copy of your speech when I was in the “wilds” of Idaho, and I
cannot tell you the comfort it gave me to read it, and how it
intensified the affection and admiration I have always had for the
speaker. I can just think of your making up your mind to say the thing
and do the thing that the occasion demanded.... You selected the
psychological moment, and I have no doubt that you did a great deal to
prevent Hearst’s election, and I do not doubt also that you are
receiving the commendations of your grateful fellow citizens of New
York, and all over the country, as you ought to, for hurling your
spear full and fair at this “knight of evil.”...
From everything I have seen in the west my judgment is that the
President cannot avoid running again.... There is no real second
choice where I have been. Of course there are complimentary allusions
to others.... So far as you and I are concerned I think we are well
out of it, and whatever may be our ambitions for honourable service,
there is a compensation in not having to be exposed to the horrors of
a campaign with this product of yellow journalism whom you have had so
much satisfaction in sending down to defeat for a time.
Apropos of this victory, Mr. Roosevelt wrote to Mr. Taft:
Upon my word I do not know which to be the more proud of, what Root
did in New York or what you did in Idaho.
When Mr. Taft got back to Washington he found the following letter from
Mr. Root, which completes the triangle of this mutual admiration society
of the Three Musketeers:
_Dear Porthos_:
I have been disappointed that your most important and admirable speech
in Idaho has not been more freely published and commented on in the
East. I have just suggested to the Editor of _The Outlook_ that he
ought to print it in extenso and call attention to it. He will apply
to you directly for it and I hope you will let him have it.
I am going to start Saturday afternoon to be away for a week, and if
you see any gaping lids about my Department in the meantime, please
sit on them gently.
Faithfully yours,
ELIHU ROOT.
“Sitting on the lid” was not in any sense the stationary and reposeful
performance the expression seems to suggest. Before Mr. Taft returned to
Washington from a tour of inspection of brigade posts, which followed
immediately upon his trip to Idaho, Mr. Roosevelt had gone to Panama,
leaving behind him various questions, including the one which resulted
from the discharge without honour of the three companies of coloured
troops at Brownsville, Texas, for the Secretary of War to keep within
bounds until his return. Then there were many matters of a purely
executive nature which, as long as they did not require the signature of
the President himself, Mr. Taft was authorised and expected to dispose
of. And with the Secretary of State also absent, his office became
government headquarters, practically, where foreign Ambassadors,
Senators and officials of other Departments had to take their chances of
an interview along with visitors or representatives from the
Philippines, Hawaii, Cuba, Porto Rico, Alaska and the Canal Zone, and
with Army officers and War Department clerks.
I finally gave up all idea of ever getting him home to luncheon, but we
nearly always had a dinner engagement, so along about the hour when I
knew he would have just time to rush home and dress I would call him on
the telephone. And then, if I were fortunate enough to get him without a
disgraceful delay, he almost invariably came in, followed by an extra
private secretary bearing a large portfolio of papers to be disposed of
before such hour as he chose to consider bedtime.
The winter of 1906–7 was too busy to remember as anything except a sort
of hazy nightmare lightened in spots by contemplation of the delightful
possibilities contained in a rapidly growing Presidential “boom,” but it
came to an end, and early in the summer I gathered up my family and a
few necessary belongings and went to Murray Bay. We were to leave some
time in August for the Philippines and the trip around the world via the
Trans-Siberian Railway, and I wanted very much to have my husband get
away for a few weeks of absolute detachment from public affairs, feeling
sure that it would be his last opportunity for rest and relaxation for
many a day. But no man can be a candidate for President of the United
States and indulge at the same time in even a short period of complete
tranquillity.
Before Mr. Taft joined me he, in deference to the wishes of the men who
were conducting his “boom,” made another speech-making trip through the
West on the method so aptly described as “whirlwind,” and did not arrive
in Murray Bay until the first week in July.
It just occurs to me that I have covered all these different periods of
our lives without even mentioning Murray Bay, although a large part of
the Taft family has been spending the summers there for twenty years or
more. We went there before the place became in any sense “fashionable,”
when the only kind of hotel accommodation was in quaint old inns of the
real French-Canadian type in which no English was spoken, but where
service of such delightfully simple and satisfactory quality as can no
longer be obtained was smilingly offered at rates which would now be
considered absurdly low. After our first year in 1892 we always had a
cottage,—and on going to Murray Bay we prepared to enjoy ourselves in
the luxury of complete simplicity.
The cottage which we have occupied for a number of years is perched on a
rocky headland overlooking the sixteen miles wide stretch of the St.
Lawrence river and almost entirely hidden in a dense grove of fragrant
pine trees. It is roomy and comfortable, but simple as a camp in the
woods, being finished in unpainted pine and furnished with only such
things as may be locked up and left year in and year out. There is
nothing to tempt any possible robber, the only distinctive things in the
house being some Philippine curios, wall decorations and floor mats,
called “petates,” which we have brought with us at different times from
Manila.
Mr. Taft stayed at Murray Bay about five weeks, but during that time our
cottage in the woods was the United States War Department and
headquarters of a very probable Presidential candidate. Then, too, Mr.
Taft was beset with the nagging necessity for preparing speeches which
were really to launch his campaign for the nomination before he left for
the trip around the world. The campaign in Ohio became centred and
active during the summer, with Mr. Taft far in the lead among possible
candidates, and all over the country organisations were forming which
demanded whole-hearted and unremitting attention.
The busy man wrote to Mr. Roosevelt: “I am enjoying my vacation,” but
his vacation consisted in a release from constant social formalities and
a daily round of golf on the links of the Murray Bay Club which he liked
so much and over which he had played for so many years,—nothing more.
Early in August he left for Washington with the understanding that I
should complete arrangements, and taking Charlie with me, should meet
him at the entrance of Yellowstone Park at the end of the month. In the
meantime he had one more long speech-making trip to begin at Columbus on
the 19th of August and to take him through Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri,
Oklahoma and to Denver.
His mother, to whom the whole family was strongly devoted, was at this
time very ill. It did not seem possible that she could be with us for
long, and all of her sons wished sincerely to be able to remain near
her. One of them, Horace, was able to do so, but when my husband
declared to her his desire to give up the trip to the Philippines and
stay in the United States until she recovered she said to him:
“No Taft, to my knowledge, has ever yet neglected a public duty for the
sake of gratifying a private desire. You promised the Filipinos that you
would be present at the opening of their first Assembly, and if you
should break that promise and neglect your plain duty on my account, it
would give me no pleasure.”
This was the last serious thing she ever said to him, and it gave him
great comfort throughout the long trip as the reports of her failing
strength came to him. He never saw her again.
With my son Charlie, who was then nearly ten years old, I met my husband
and his party at Livingston Junction, on the Northern Pacific Railroad
in Montana, and we proceeded together to Gardiner at the entrance to
Yellowstone Park. There we were met by General Young, the Superintendent
of the Park, and Colonel Henry T. Allen, and by the head of the Park
transportation company and began at once a wonderful three days’ trip,
which included, among other things, the business of inspecting the Army
post with the purpose of making recommendations for changes in the Park
patrolling system.
As our time was very short we had to drive about fifty miles every day,
which meant hurrying on at top speed, with relays of Army mules, and not
much more than a how-d’ye-do and good-bye at every place we stopped. In
consequence we completely lost track of the days of the week and made
what I then thought would prove to be a fatal error.
We got back to the Mammoth Springs Hotel one evening and found the place
quite gay with crowds of tourists. There being nothing else to do, I
suggested that after dinner we play bridge in the lobby where all the
people were and where everything seemed so lively and entertaining. We
did. Mr. Taft and I, General Clarence Edwards and another member of our
party sat there and played until quite late, enjoying ourselves
immensely. Everybody looked at us, and I noticed a few persons taking
special pains to pass close enough for a really satisfactory inspection,
but we were used to being gazed at and paid no attention to it. It was
not until the next morning that every look that was cast upon us assumed
for me a special meaning. The next morning was Monday!
Under any circumstances it would have shocked us somewhat to find that
through forgetfulness we had played bridge during a whole Sunday
evening, but with Mr. Taft generally recognised as a probable candidate
for President, our shock was merged into serious concern with regard to
the effect the story might have on the millions of good Sabbatarians
throughout the country. And there was no possible explanation that we
could make. Playing cards was bad enough, but to have forgotten Sunday
altogether was a great deal worse, so we were perfectly helpless. Up to
the day Mr. Taft was elected I looked for the story to rise up and smite
us. I had visions of glaring headlines: “Taft Plays Cards on the Sabbath
Day.” Having been brought up on strictly Sabbatarian principles myself,
I knew what good use could be made of the incident in the hands of our
political enemies. But we never heard a word from it, and I have a warm
regard for all those good people who failed to avail themselves of such
an opportunity for a bit of valuable gossip. Or had they all forgotten
it was Sunday, too?
On the way from Yellowstone Park to Seattle I had a taste of real
campaign work and always thereafter enjoyed a full realisation of its
difficulties. I got completely worn out as a mere onlooker, and as I saw
Mr. Taft encountering the throngs at every stopping place, speaking
until his voice was reduced to a hoarse whisper, and shaking hands until
he groaned with the ache of his muscles, my political enthusiasm waned
slightly, though temporarily, and I could think of nothing to be more
thankful for at the moment than the fact that we were about to set out
on a two weeks’ ocean voyage, beginning a three months’ trip around the
world.
[Illustration:
(_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
]