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
I do not allow myself to be moved by anything except the law. If there has been a mistake in the law, or if I think there has beenperjury or injustice, I will weigh the petition most carefully, but I do not permit myself to be moved by more harrowing details, and I try to treat each case as if I was reviewing it or hearing it for the first time from the bench.
The laboring man and the trade-unionist, if I understand him, asks only equality before the law. Class legislation and unequal privilege, though expressly in his favor, will in the end work no benefit to him or to society.
One of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming administration is a change in our monetary and banking laws, so as to secure greater elasticity in the forms of currency available for trade and to prevent the limitations of law from operating to increase the embarrassment of a financial panic.
We have a government of limited power under the Constitution, and we have got to work out our problems on the basis of law.
Action for which I become responsible, or for which my administration becomes responsible, shall be within the law.
It is not impossible, of course, after such an administration as Roosevelt's and after the change in method that I could not but adapt in view of my different way of looking at things, that questions should arise as to whether I should go back on the principles of the Roosevelt administration.... I have a government of limited power under a Constitution, and we have got to work out our problems on the basis of law. Now, if that is reactionary, then I am a reactionary.
We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with the National Militia, and under the provision of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the name of President Monroe.
We live in a stage of politics, where legislators seem to regard the passage of laws as much more important than the results of their enforcement.
I have come to the conclusion that the major part of the work of a President is to increase the gate receipts of expositions and fairs and bring tourists to town.
We are imperfect. We cannot expect perfect government.
Masonry aims at the promotion of morality and higher living by the cultivation of the social side of man, the rousing in him of the instincts of charity and love of his kind. It rests surely on the foundation of the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.
The scope of modern government in what it can and ought to accomplish for its people has been widened far beyond the principles laid down by the old "laissez faire" school of political rights, and the widening has met popular approval.
If this humor be the safety of our race, then it is due largely to the infusion into the American people of the Irish brain.
What I am anxious to do is to get the best bill possible with the least amount of friction.... I wish to avoid [splitting our party]. I shall do all in my power to retain the corporation tax as it is now and also force a reduction of the [tariff] schedules. It is only when all other efforts fail that I'll resort to headlines and force the people into this fight.