During the campaign I made a number of speeches in support of his candidacy prior to the 2nd day of September, when I spoke with him at a large mass meeting in Toledo. Shortly afterward I was invited by his representative, Mr. A. I. Vorys, who came to my office for the purpose, to preside at a meeting to be held in Music Hall, Cincinnati, September 22nd, to be addressed by Mr. Taft. Mr. Vorys said it was the special desire of Mr. Taft that I should preside and introduce him, and that he was making the request as his immediate representative sent by him to me for that purpose. I accepted, and the meeting was thereupon duly and widely advertised. In the papers of September 18th appeared an account of the attacks made on me by Mr. William R. Hearst in his Standard Oil speech at Columbus the previous evening. As already shown, I immediately made answers to these attacks that should have satisfied, as they did, all real friends, and many who were not classed as such, including Democrats as well as Republicans, as my files of letters and telegrams and marked editorials from hundreds of the best men and most important newspapers in the country abundantly show, that I would be able to meet successfully any charge Mr. Hearst might make. Nevertheless, the same papers that carried my answers printed intimations that Mr. Taft thought I ought to withdraw my acceptance of the invitation I had accepted at his request to preside at the approaching meeting advertised for the 22nd. I could not believe it possible that my longtime friend could doubt either my integrity or the truthfulness and sufficiency of my statements, or that he would not be glad to show in any proper and legitimate way his personal regard and friendship to which he had so often alluded when acknowledging favors I had shown him, but deeming it my duty to relieve him of all embarrassment by withdrawing from the meeting unless he should see fit to re-invite me, I sent him the following self-explanatory note: CINCINNATI, OHIO, September 19, 1908. My Dear Judge:-Having read in the newspapers that some of your friends, and possibly you, are in doubt as to the propriety of my speak ing with you at Music Hall next Tuesday night I have concluded not to attend the meeting. I take this action not because I deem the answers I have made to Mr. Hearst's charges insufficient, nor because of any lack of loyalty to your cause, but only because I do not wish to do anything that might injure the cause or embarrass you personally. Very truly yours, etc., HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT, J. B. FORAKER. Senator W. Murray Crane of Massachusetts, and Senator Charles Dick both happened to be in Cincinnati at that time. Both called at my office to see me. I showed them the letter I had written and was intending to send to Mr. Taft. Upon their suggestion, I think it was, I gave it to them to present to him and to receive from him such note in answer as he might be pleased to write. They returned later in the day and told me that Mr. Taft was very much "disturbed and embarrassed." They said there were "indications" that he was in communication by telephone with President Roosevelt, and that President Roosevelt was, in their judgment, responsible for the fact that Mr. Taft desired to be excused from doing more than expressing to them the hope that I would be willing to confer with the committee with respect to the meeting and take such course as the committee might recommend. I interpreted this to mean that Mr. Taft preferred I should not attend the meeting, as he had requested me to do, and immediately canceled my engagement. At the same time I canceled all my other engagements for speeches during the campaign, of which I then had a number. I was both surprised and mortified by Mr. Taft's action for it seemed to give credence to Mr. Hearst's charges and to discredit thereby the answers I had published. I made to the Senatorial messengers some appropriate and human-like comments, but did not say anything bad-at least nothing like what the case properly called for—for I remembered that he was in the midst of a campaign, and that as the candidate of the party he probably thought it was his duty to be prudent and careful, even to the point of se crificing a friend, lest he make a mistake that would be prejudicial to the party he represented,-a conviction that was strengthened, when a few days later he said in a published interview that he had no comments to make about me or Mr. Hearst's attacks "because he could not strike a man when he was down"-a cheerful and comforting observation that showed the quality and measure of the friendship and gratitude he had so frequently expressed. CHAPTER XLVII. SOME OF THE CAUSES OF THE TAFT COLLAPSE. RECURRING ECURRING now to the humiliating defeat sustained by President Taft in 1912, the cause of it is commonly attributed to Colonel Roosevelt, and with most people he alone is held responsible therefor. Judging from purported interviews with him published in newspapers, he is probably glad to have this responsibility laid at his door. Nevertheless the charge is correct only in part. There were other causes. I feel that I should mention some of them-not in a spirit of unkind criticism, but in a good-natured effort to hold the scales of justice even between my old-time friends. I hope nothing I may say will offend; and that if it should it will be remembered that "faithful are the wounds of a friend"or of anybody else who tells the truth. The causes to which I refer were quite aside from anything done by Colonel Roosevelt. They constituted a trouble of President Taft's own making. Before election, and more particularly since his defeat, many of his speeches, considered as abstract expressions, have been noteworthy for their excellence. But while in office he seemed unable, when occasions arose, to recognize concrete cases for the application of his own ideas. Whether this was due to inability to see or mere careless indifference is not entirely clear. He himself was fully conscious of the fact that he had some such trouble, and undertook, in a speech made shortly after his defeat, to explain its nature. It was his opinion, according to newspaper report, that he has "too much love of personal ease." He should be the best authority as to himself; but whether he is or not, there was a popular acceptance of his diagnosis, which it was supposed referred to his well known fondness for golf and his almost constant traveling about over the country in attendance upon all kinds of public occasions, in connection with which his presence and entertainment were naturally much exploited in the papers, not merely as news items, but for local advertising purposes. All summer long the papers published daily accounts of the games played and the scores made, all in the greatest detail, until the common people at least were sick and tired of it, and very freely so expressed themselves about it. Even worse was their impatience with his journeying and banqueting to and fro through the land. The result was that eventually the impression very generally prevailed that he spent too much time seeking his own pleasure and not enough studying the nation's needs.* This no doubt cost him some votes in 1912, as he seems to think, but there were other causes of more dignity and moment why he lost the united support of his party and was defeated for re-election-without regard to his trouble with Colonel Roosevelt. I refer to causes that had nothing to do with their quarrel, but which created among Republicans a feeling of As confirmatory of the text I quote from Mr. Dunn's "Gridiron Nights" the following from his account of one of the Gridiron dinners given in 1911: "President Taft received more attention than he desired at the dinner. There were references which he did not enjoy. Not only was he touched up in the Mother Goose book, but there was a more pointed thrust at his well-known propensity to travel. Several members. of the Club came in with a large roll of paper, and, in reply to a question, said that it was a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-mile ticket for President Taft. It was unrolled and just as one end was about to be placed in Mr. Taft's hands it snapped back. "This is a return ticket,' was the explanation. Then the lights went out; there was the clanging of a locomotive bell and a picture flashed upon a screen showing the President and his usual traveling companions and paraphernalia on a private car, labeled 'the Summer White House.' In his account of another dinner Mr. Dunn says the Music Committee of the Gridiron Club sang a song, to the tune of "Marching Through Georgia," that referred to "the many banquets, luncheons, etc., which had been tendered Mr. Taft," composed of the following words: "Sound the good old dinner horn, we'll sing another song About the trip that Taft once made, when, with digestion strong, He ate his share of everything that they would bring along As we went eating through Georgia. Hurrah, hurrah, we sound the jubilee; We put away three meals a day As we went eating through Georgia." |