The Presidency of William Howard Taft by Paolo E. Coletta

Taft was not outstanding, but he was “creditable” and “competent” and worked earnestly to make government more efficient and effective ( WHT, p. In fact, newspapers of the time treated the departing president almost fondly the Portland Oregonian called him “the worst licked, best liked, and least sore” of all presidents ( WHT, p. But Gould observes that Taft did not leave office in disgrace.

Gould’s central argument is that Taft’s presidency was not “a failure.” Many historians have drawn such a conclusion from Taft’s embarrassing third place finish in his 1912 race for reelection. Though it scants Taft’s life pre- and post-presidency, it serves as a ready and trustworthy reference for students of American politics. The book is well organized and easy to follow. ) On the whole, Gould’s prose is spare, though livened with choice quotations. (Nor does one imagine that any future Taft portrait will equal Gould’s use of Batman puns: as he tells it, the Tafts’ dairy cow, Pauline Wayne, produced up to sixty-four quarts of milk per day “when milked in a stately Wayne manner”. A more exhaustive study could hardly be expected. Gould has drawn on more than forty years of research in nearly fifty manuscript collections. The William Howard Taft Presidency is admirably comprehensive. Nevertheless, examining this First Couple provides a fascinating look into the complex connections between ideology, personality, and politics in early twentieth-century America. Little can be done to make Will Taft anything other than a middling president, as Gould admits. Drawing on impressive archival research, Gould succeeds in amending the historical record, though not fundamentally reshaping it. Gould aims to rescue the couple from obscurity. In a pair of books written for the American Presidency series and Modern First Lady series, respectively, published by the University Press of Kansas, political historian Lewis L. His wife, Helen (“Nellie”) Herron Taft, has met the perhaps kinder fate of simply being ignored. The small number of scholarly books devoted to his life have made but minor impressions on the popular mind, where Taft’s need of an oversize bathtub overshadows his service as federal court judge, colonial governor of the Philippines, secretary of war, chief justice of the Supreme Court, and of course, president. viii + 220 pp.ĭespite an impressive governmental resume, William Howard Taft has the misfortune of being remembered today chiefly for his girth. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2010.

Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009. The William Howard Taft Presidency.Īmerican Presidency Series.

The Presidency of William Howard Taft by Paolo E. Coletta