Recollections of Full Years/Chapter 14
These were the days when Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Root and Mr. Taft were known and very aptly caricatured as "The Three Musketeers," a tiling 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. Tait 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, tiding 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.
(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