William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taftserved as the 27th President of the United Statesand as the 10th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected president in 1908, the chosen successor of Theodore Roosevelt, but was defeated for re-election by Woodrow Wilson in 1912 after Roosevelt split the Republican vote by running as a third-party candidate. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Taft chief justice, a position in which he served...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPresident
Date of Birth15 September 1857
CountryUnited States of America
That we can come here today and in the presence of thousands and tens of thousands of the survivors of the gallant army of Northern Virginia and their descendants, establish such an enduring monument by their hospitable welcome and acclaim, is conclusive proof of the uniting of the sections, and a universal confession that all that was done was well done, that the battle had to be fought, that the sections had to be tried, but that in the end, the result has inured to the common benefit of all.
Failure to accord credit to anyone for what he may have done is a great weakness in any man.
There is only one thing I wast to say about Ohio that has a political tinge, and that is that I think a mistake has been made of recent years in Ohio in failing to continue as our representatives the same people term after term. I do not need to tell a Washington audience, among whom there are certainly some who have been interested in legislation, that length of service in the House and in the Senate is what gives influence.
I have come to the conclusion that the major part of the president is to increase the gate receipts of expositions and fairs and bring tourists to town.
The game of baseball is a clean, straight game, and it summons to its presence everybody who enjoys clean, straight athletics. It furnishes amusement to the thousands and thousands.
The President cannot make clouds to rain and cannot make the corn to grow. He cannot make business good, although when these things occur, political parties do claim some credit for the good things that have happened in this way
The truth is that in my present life I don't remember that I ever was president
The true Mason takes full responsibility for the condition of his character and ever strives for its perfection.
We have passed the time of ... the laisser-faire [sic] school which believes that the government ought to do nothing but run a police force.
I know this, and I know it from actual experience in the Orient, that the progress of modern Christian civilization has largely depended on the earnest hard work of the Christian missions of every denomination.
The true Mason is ever vigilant for subtle traces of character and personality flaws which daily experience brings out.
I am afraid I am a constant disappointment to my party. The fact of the matter is, the longer I am President the less of a party man I seem to become.
We have a government of limited power under the Constitution, and we have got to work out our problems on the basis of law.
A man never knows exactly how the child of his brain will strike other people.