William Howard Taft This chief, not that chief EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Listen to Presidential at http://wapo.st/presidential This transcript was run through an automated transcription service and then lightly edited for clarity. There may be typos or small discrepancies from the podcast audio. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: We're up to William Howard Taft this week, and no, we are not going to talk at all about Taft getting stuck in a bathtub. I am Lillian Cunningham, and this is the 26th episode of “Presidential.” PRESIDENTIAL THEME MUSIC LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: I've got a bunch of wonderful guests for this episode. Biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin is back; and also my Washington Post colleague Robert Barnes will be joining us; and we have Michelle Krowl from the Library of Congress. But this is her very last episode with us after a marathon of helping out with these “Presidential” episodes. So, we are going to send her out in style by having her kick off the William Howard Taft episode. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1857 and he was president for one term after Theodore Roosevelt, from 1909 to 1913. MICHELLE KROWL: I think the key thing that propels him to the presidency is the family that he's born into. He's the favorite child. His father had a couple of sons by his first wife, who died, and then he remarried to William Howard Taft's mother and had four more children with her. But of all of them, Will -- his nickname was Will -- Will was the favorite child. You know, all the other brothers and sisters just adored him. His parents adored him. And I think that created in him an expectation that he needed to please people -- that he needed to live up to family reputations. His father had served in Ulysses S. Grant's administration, was a very respected man in Cincinnati. His father had gone to Yale, and his two older brothers had gone to Yale, and they'd all been successful and very bright. That seems to be a theme throughout his life -- he does have an idea of what would make him happy, but other people propel him into directions that either he's not comfortable with going or wouldn't have have done on his own. So, I think he's ambitious in some ways, but he's not as ambitious as some of the other men that Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 1 we've encountered, particularly when it's involving the presidency and higher office. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: So, on a blind date with him, would he just do whatever I wanted us to do? Would I set the date? MICHELLE KROWL: You know, with Will Taft, you probably would. From all accounts, everybody loved him. He was very genial. He's a very, very good-natured person. He's always popular personally with people. So, I think he would be a fun date, but I think he would be very amenable to doing what you wanted to do. So, if you suggested something, he would probably go along with it. And that's where he ended up with his wife -- the woman that he ended up marrying was someone who had ideas and had ambitions, and she was a very untraditional woman for her time. If the Tafts had been living today, she would have been running for office, and he would have been a judge. All the way along, he was happy being a judge, whether it was back in Cincinnati or on a higher plane. But that didn't match with her ambitions and where she thought that he should go. So, he doesn't have great ambition, but she will push him along -- partially, I think, to satisfy some of her own ambitions. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: In addition to that he has a wife who is steering him toward higher and higher political office, what else is kind of helping him rise? MICHELLE KROWL: Well, and it's not just his wife. His elder brother Charlie is very involved in his life and is making it possible for him to be a public servant. As Taft goes into these judgeships or various positions higher up in the government, he never feels like he's making enough money to be able to support his family or do the entertaining that he should. And in all cases, when his family. and particularly his brother Charlie, feels that this is a good opportunity for him, then they supplement his income. And they do it lovingly. They all feel that he has greatness in him and will do great things. And so, it's usually Charlie who says, ‘In celebration of this, we're going to give you X number of shares of stock,’ or, ‘I'm happy to give you a quarter of my income.' So, it's sort of a family honor that Taft brings to them, of all of these things that he's able to accomplish. And what's interesting is, at various times when Taft is having to decide, 'OK, do I continue doing what I'm doing or do I take this other job?' It's not necessarily that he's just having an internal conversation with himself about, 'Is this what I want to do? Is this best for me?' Or even having a conversation just with his wife, Nellie. It's often almost having a family council -- 'OK, what does everybody think about this?' And if enough people say yes, you should do this, then he does it. And then, of course, when he gets higher up into the government, then T.R. is pushing him into positions, too. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: Taft was an assistant prosecutor in Ohio early in his career, then he was a judge of the Cincinnati Superior Court, then he was U.S. solicitor general and then a judge of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 2 And he loved all of these judicial jobs. But his wife and his family kept egging him on toward more political roles. So, when President McKinley offers Taft the position as first civilian governor of the Philippines -- and, remember, the Philippines had just come under U.S. control in the Spanish- American War -- when he's offered this, Taft feels pressured to say yes, so he accepts it. MICHELLE KROWL: But it's worth noting that even though he gets kind of pushed into the role, once he's in it, he's very dedicated. His predecessor had been the military governor and had been very standoffish with the local population. They weren't very interested in having the Filipinos actually participate in their own government. But when Taft comes in, he shakes that up a bit. You know, he and his family are going to learn Spanish; and they invite people into the governor's house for receptions, which is something that hadn't been done before. And I think that's also a trait with him -- even if he doesn't go after these jobs because he has a burning passion for it, he does try to make the best of it and do the best job that he can and be as independent with his own thinking, within the confines of what the administration says he can do or what he feels like he can legally do. Because that's one thing to always remember about Taft as we talk about leadership or how he he operates -- he is a judge at heart. If he does have a burning ambition for his own career, he wants to be chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. That is his dream job and that is his temperament. He's judicial. He goes along with the law. He weighs things. Whereas Theodore Roosevelt may push the envelope just to the edge of the law and kind of dab a toe over, Taft is more of the [kind to say] 'What does the law say we can do rather than how far can we push things? LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: Taft was actually offered seats on the Supreme Court twice by Theodore Roosevelt while T.R. was president. MICHELLE KROWL: You know, it's a job that he would have really enjoyed. But, he says no because the Philippines work is important to him. Plus, he also has his wife and his brother say, 'Well, you know, if you get stuck on the bench when you're this young, you're not going to advance your career. It might take a long time to become chief justice.' So not only does he feel this pull of duty towards the Filipinos, he also has other people saying, 'This is not the right thing for you to do.' LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: So, instead he stays in the Philippines for a while longer. But then Theodore Roosevelt makes Taft his Secretary of War, which brings Taft back to Washington, and it kind of turns him into Roosevelt's righthand man. And so then, when Roosevelt decides that he's not going to run for a third term in 1908, he basically handpicks Taft to be his successor. And Roosevelt goes out on the campaign trail, rallying support for Taft. MICHELLE KROWL: And again, it's a situation where Taft doesn't want to be president. Now, we're going back to those previous presidents – ‘well, OK, if I have to be.’ Another thing about about Taft, too, is that he's his own harshest critic.