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Originally published in 1910.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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Part of a series providing bibliographies of the presidents of the USA, this volume is about the 27th president, William Taft. Each bibliography includes manuscript and archival resources, a chronology, monographs, articles and interviews, government documents, newspapers coverage, dissertations, iconographic resources, an introductory essay on the personage and oral histories. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Much More than a Collection
This collection of Taft's public papers is the first such endeavor, and a praiseworthy one.Readers looking for analysis won't find it here any more than any other "letters of" or "papers of" any other historical figure.

What they will find is William Howard Taft in his own words.The Taft papers at the Library of Congress number into the tens of thousands, and as such are useful only to serious researchers.The student or casual reader of the Taft era will benefit enormously from David Burton's collection of Taft's public papers.

Taft was a proficient and thorough speech writer, and one can follow his era precisely according to this collection.History shall benefit tremendously from these volumes.

A future edition will make available State addresses and, one hopes, a full and final index.

Simply a Collection
This book is a collection of SOME of the works of William Howard Taft but the title is quite misleading, as it does NOT include State of the Union Addresses.Also the author has not taken the time or effort to provide the reader / researcher with an INDEX, which, of course, means that one has to read the entire collection to find references to a particular subject matter.In short,this book is merely a reprinting of some of Taft's speeches and addresses and nothing more! ... Read more

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Brains and body man has from God; what he makes of them depends upon himself. He is the driver of his own mental engine. He advances, stands still or falls back as he wills. Even the overcoming of natural physical limitations is often a matter of personal determination. One of the greatest works of American historical literature is the monument to the will of a man who could devote but five minutes at a time to his task... ... Read more

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The only president to later serve as chief justice of the United States, William Howard Taft remarked in the 1920s that "I don't remember that I ever was President." Historians have agreed, and Taft is usually portrayed, when written about at all, as nothing more than a failed chief executive. In this provocative new study, the first treatment of the Taft presidency in four decades, Lewis L. Gould presents a compelling assessment of Taft's accomplishments and setbacks in office. Rich in human interest and fresh analysis of the events of Taft's four years in Washington, Gould's book shows why Taft's presidency is very much worth remembering on its own terms.

Gould argues that Taft wanted to be president and had an ambitious agenda when he took power in March 1909. Approaching his duties more as a judge than as a charismatic executive in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt, Taft soon found himself out of step with public opinion. Gould shows how the Payne-Aldrich Tariff and the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy squandered Taft's political capital and prepared the ground for Democratic victories in the elections of 1910 and 1912. His seamless narrative provides innovative treatments of these crucial episodes to make Taft's presidency more understandable than in any previous account. On Canadian Reciprocity, Dollar Diplomacy, and international arbitration, Gould's well-researched work goes beyond earlier stale clichés about Taft's administration to link his tenure to the evolution of the modern presidency. Taft emerges as a hard-working but flawed executive who lacked the excitement of Theodore Roosevelt or the inspiration of Woodrow Wilson.

The break with Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 doomed the Taft presidency, and Gould supplies an evenhanded analysis of the erosion of their once warm friendship. At bottom, the two men clashed about the nature of presidential power, and Gould traces with insight how this personal and ideological rupture influenced the future of the Republican party and the course of American politics. In Gould's skilled hands, this neglected presidency again comes alive. Leaving the White House in 1913, Taft wrote that "the people of the United States did not owe me another election." What his presidency deserved is the lively and wise appraisal of his record in office contained in this superb book.

This book is part of the American Presidency Series. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Good Taft Biography
Lewis Gould gives the reader a fairly balanced portrait of President Taft. All the major points are covered: TR's choice of Taft to succeed him in office, the Ballinger-Pinchot dispute, the growing personal and political split between Taft and TR, and the impact of Dollar Diplomacy.Although I don't think the author backed up his thesis with proof that Taft didn't have sleep apnea; there is too much medical evidence to the contrary.There are many documented examples and research into diagnoses of his many doctors, to state otherwise.Gould states that "There are also indications of more serious medical problems, such as Bright's disease or neuralgia...that raised questions about whether Taft should have resigned." But he gives us no concrete evidence or research sources that support that statement.It is unfortunate that he makes that off-the-cuff remark without proof.Otherwise, this is, although a short work, a thorough look at a man who did not want to be President, and was more satisfied with his later career as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. This book gives us great not-before-seen insight into his administration, with good short character studies of Taft's personal secretaries. Good space is given his court appointments and that he selected the first woman to head a government bureau (Julia Lathrop).The First Lady is also covered, although briefly. For a more thorough study of Helen Taft, see:Nellie Taft: The Unconventional First Lady of the Ragtime EraThe author has excellent and well-written chapters on the growing rift between Taft and Teddy Roosevelt, and the 1912 election.The book presents us with a president with integrity and who did not have a failed term of office, but one with mixed political defeats with positive results.I liked the final chapter in which the various biographies of Taft, (and there are very few), are contrasted and compared. I agree with the author that more research to be done on this outstanding president, who went on to his position on the Supreme Court, which better suited his abilities and temperament.

Taft
All the other American Preidency Series had the same look and feel.This was a oversize book so it does not fit in with the rest on your book shelf.Also, too long.It really is not the same caliber as the others, which were short and too the point.This was a reseach work.

Taft Presidency
A very readable, well written and informative evaluation of the Taft presidency. I would recommend this book to all who are interested in learning about the presidents and those who wish to understand the evolution of the views of the Republican Party.The book gives a clear picture of the differences between Theodore Roosevelt's personality and view of the power of the presidency and those of William Howard Taft.

Fine biography of William Howard Taft
There are not a large number of high quality biographies of William Howard Taft. This book, part of "The American Presidency" series, does a fine job outlining Taft the President and Taft the person. The series itself has a specific mission (Page vii): ". . .to present scholars and the general reading public with interesting, well-researched assessments of the various presidential administrations." The author, Lewis Gould, begins by noting the bad luck of Taft, in an historical sense, of being President between two dynamic and well-known presidents--Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

This book spends only a modest amount of time examining Taft before he became president. There is some background on his role in the Philippines and as Secretary of War under Roosevelt. Then, the story of his nomination, with the sense that he was a natural heir to Teddy Roosevelt. Soon, it would be obvious that that was not the case--and a rift developed that ended up dooming Taft's desire for a second term.

Once Taft became president, he had a number of challenges--on both the domestic and international stages. He ended up widening rifts in the Republican Party between progressives and conservatives, over issues such as the Payne-Aldrich Tariff bill. Taft was surely not a terrible politician, but it was not a skill that came easily to him. As the book points out, as in the case of the tariff, he sometimes had a tin ear to people's views on matters. Sometimes, if he was not careful, he would commit gaffes in his speeches or off-hand comments that undermined him politically.

He began to create a gulf between himself and Roosevelt over his views on conservation and his choosing sides against one of TR's holdovers in the Taft Administration (Gifford Pinchot). In 1910, his party suffered a reverse in the Congressional elections, and his ability to create a majority began to suffer.

The 1912 campaign was difficult for Taft. Roosevelt, running as a Progressive stole many Republican votes from Taft, and Taft ended up actually finishing third in the popular and electoral vote. The book briefly considers his time as a college law school professor and as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

This is a fine biography of Taft, and if the reader wants to get a detailed sense of his presidency and his persona, this is an excellent starting point.

How NOT to succeed in Presidential politics
Not much has been written about William Howard Taft's Presidency, especially in its own right. When one thinks of the turn of the century, attention turns naturally to the energetic, trust-busting, roustabout populism of that denizen of Mount Rushmore, Theodore Roosevelt, or to the crucial years of Woodrow Wilson and his stewardship during the First World War. Considering the critical leadership (and high historical appreciation) of those two Presidents, it becomes very easy to gloss over or misunderstand Taft's own years in the White House, especially since he is lost in the middle of two seminal two-term Presidents.

This is not to say that Taft was a spectacularly effective, or even critically important, President. There is a reason that he has been consigned to the metaphorical dust heap of history. What Gould finally addresses, evenhandedly, are the inner workings and struggles of Taft in an office he was never truly suited to inhabit. Here, one gets a sense of looking over Taft's shoulder as he attempts to shun the image of Roosevelt's iconic grappling of presidential power. Let's face it: just as John Adams, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson were unfairly crushed in popular opinion by the shadow of their predecessors, so Taft could never hope to succeed following TR. Gould covers that crucial point and also elaborates on a number of critical mistakes that Taft made that hurt his cause. In fact, Taft's presidency reads as a manual of all the things NOT to do in order to succeed in the White House: lose the public image battle (WHT's love of golf as his recreational habit simultaneously portrays him as "elitist" and exposes him to unflattering photographs highlighting his weight, further contrasting him with TR), issue confusing contradictions of public policy decisions, hire unqualified people to handle your crucial departments, and add a healthy dose of bad luck and controversial economic decisions to the mix.

The bottom line about the book is: this is THE book to read about WHT AND also essential for anybody interested in the era. Not only does Taft's foreign policy decisions foreshadow WWI and Latin American troubles of the 20th Century, but Gould always highlights, correctly, how Taft's presidency led to the modern Republican party. By reneging on his promise to extend TR's progressive agenda, he caused a schism in the GOP that expelled the more progressive and moderate members of the party into independent and Democratic causes. As a result, the Republican party maintained its approval of laissez-faire economics and dissaproval of union power, at the expense of its more progressive social policy base. As a result, the Democratic party ascended to the major party of power for most of the 20th Century until the 1970s. Until Nixon, the Republicans were only able to elect Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and Eisenhower to the Oval Office. In that way, Taft influenced 20th Century politics in his most pervasive way. At 215 pages, it is an easy read, and Gould pentrates the inner workings of this deceptively simple time in ways that keeps the reader engaged throughout the narrative.

For those of you who are trying to read a biography of every president, this is the one to read for Taft. ... Read more

Product Description
This book is a study of the internationalism of William Howard Taft. In the months after war broke out in 1914, Taft was second only to Woodrow Wilson in his awareness of the need to preserve the peace of the world through a new version of international organization. Built upon a synthetic interpretation of Taft’s foreign policy ideas and initiatives, the book encompasses the whole of his public career as a statesman, from his years as civil governor of the Philippines through his tenure as chief justice of the Supreme Court. During those years, he moved from a basic belief in the theory and practice of balance of power to the application of dollar diplomacy.In response to the calamity of World War I, Taft came to recognize that world peace must be based upon a combination of idealism and realism, of high-minded principles placed and kept in effect by force, deliberately chosen and carefully applied. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent Work
David Burton has as comprehensive body of work on the Progressive Era as any modern historian, and this work on Taft's peace initiatives brings yet another dimension to Burton's accomplishments on this Era.

Here Burton explores what was in its time a highly charged public discussion regarding international law, war, and peace. Taft made arbitration of international disputes a primary goal of his presidency, and while his treaties went unconfirmed by the Senate, his publicity of the issue inspired and advanced the movement.

While the outbreak of WWI would seem to belie the "peace" movements that preceded it, the historian should note that international arbitration has a larger history that spans well before and after the Great War, and Taft's contributions to it significantly shaped its 20th century path.

Burton's "Confident Peacemaker," explores how Taft brought to his long and varied career an unfailing confidence that international disputes could be resolved short of war.This book is highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published by Simon & Schuster in 1964, this is the ironic story of how William Howard Taft, the only man ever to be both President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, reformed judicial processes in this country so thoroughly that he helped to undermine the reactionary power of wealth and privilege in which he believed. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good Analysis of Taft's Chief Justiceship
This book is written by a legal scholar who has written on a number of other 20th century American jurists.It only covers Taft's life from the perspective of his chief justiceship.As a result, his life story before 1921 is very sketchy--Mason only relates information about his life-long campaign to be appointed to the Supreme Court and surveys his legal philosophy before 1921.Almost nothing of his service in the Philippines, the War Department, or as President is discussed.

However, Taft's maneuvering before and during his presidency is discussed in detail.There's a lot of interesting disucssion of Taft's impact on federal court procedure, improving the status of the Supreme Court, his impact on constitutional jurisprudence, and his olympian efforts to build a majority for every opinion.Mason goes beyond the usual conservative/liberal or strict/loose constructionist approaches to explain what values motivated Taft's decisions and judicial philosophy.

The writing is a bit dry in places, and I wonder if the scholarship is up to date, the book having been published over 40 years ago.All in all, it's a reasonably good biography of the second half of Taft's life, but with very little on his presidency. ... Read more

Product Description
William Howard Taft declared, "I am sure the automobile coming in as a toy of the wealthier class is going to prove the most useful of them all to all classes, rich and poor." Unlike his predecessors, who made public their disdain for the automobile, Taft saw the automobile industry as a great source of wealth for this country. The first president to acquire a car in office (Congress granted him three automobiles), Taft is responsible for there being a White House garage in 1909. This is a meticulously researched reappraisal of the oft-maligned Taft presidency focusing particularly on his cars, his relationship to the automobile and the role of the automobile in the politics of his day. Appendices provide information on the White House garage and stable, Taft’s speech to the Automobile Club of America and a glossary of terms and names. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A Strong Case for Taft
While this book approaches the Taft presidency through the lens of the coming of the automobile, it accomplishes much more than establishing Taft's imperative role in the rise of motor cars. The book covers two subjects, Taft and automobiles, and the Taft presidency, and it covers both thoroughly.

Bromley approaches the Taft presidency with the question as to why Taft was the first president to endorse and extensively use automobiles. From there the question expands across the presidency itself, and the larger narrative of the 1909-1913 period expands to include the major themes and battles of the Progressive Era itself.

The research is broad and well-represented in the work, especially for its exploration of contemporaneous attitudes and perspectives. Also, through extensive use of footnotes, Bromley explores the general historiography of the Progressive Era.

Well researched, lively written, this book is highly recommended.

WT
Well written but beware that this book is little about the presidency and more about cars.Interesting, but if you are trying to read through all the presidents and want a look at the presidency, this is not the Taft book for you.Otherwise a well written book and I will return to it, thus the five stars.

Great read!
I found this book for a research project for school, and I was captivated by it. It's a fresh look at the progressive era, and, as far as I can tell, the first happy look at the Taft presidency around. I read the Pringle book, too, and was I glad that the Bromley book references areas of disagreement with Pringle, which helped me make my own conclusions. The Pringle book and all the other biographies of Taft are stale. This one stands out! Above all, the text flows easily and the story moves in and out of an amazing array of information presented. A must for any student of the progressive era, and a fun time for anyone who enjoys history. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from American Decades: Primary Sources, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 1719 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.American Decades Primary Sources provides fresh insight into the decade's most important events, people, and issues. Entries representing a diversity of views that provide insight into the seminal issues, themes, movements and events from the decade. Also included are concise contextual information, notes about the author and further resources. American Decades Primary Sources includes chapters on the arts, medicine and health, media, education, world events, religion, government and politics, lifestyles and social trends, law and justice, religion, business and the economy, and sports. Included to provide unique perspectives and a wealth of understanding are first hand accounts that include oral histories, songs, speeches, advertisements, TV, play and movie scripts, letters, laws, legal decisions, newspaper articles, cartoonsand recipes. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from American Decades: Primary Sources, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 2301 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.American Decades Primary Sources provides fresh insight into the decade's most important events, people, and issues. Entries representing a diversity of views that provide insight into the seminal issues, themes, movements and events from the decade. Also included are concise contextual information, notes about the author and further resources. American Decades Primary Sources includes chapters on the arts, medicine and health, media, education, world events, religion, government and politics, lifestyles and social trends, law and justice, religion, business and the economy, and sports. Included to provide unique perspectives and a wealth of understanding are first hand accounts that include oral histories, songs, speeches, advertisements, TV, play and movie scripts, letters, laws, legal decisions, newspaper articles, cartoonsand recipes. ... Read more