William Howard Taft (1857

It is one of the deepest wounds that I have had as an American and a lover of the Constitution and a believer in progressive conservatism, that such a man as Brandeis could be put on the Court.

The Architect of Our Divided Supreme Court By Jill Lepore January 22, 2024 Taft wrote this in 1916, expressing his opposition to Louis Brandeis being nominated to the Supreme Court., 2024

The President so fully represents his party, which secures political power by its promise to the people, and the whole government is so identified in the minds of the people with his personality that they make him responsible for all the sins of omission and of commission of society at large. This would be ludicrous if it did not have sometimes serious results. 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 things that have happened in this way. He has no power of state legislation, which covers a very wide field and which comes in many respects much closer to the happiness of the people than the Federal Government.

William Howard Taft Essential Writings and Addresses. Edited by David H. Burton. Faitleigh Dickinson University Press (2009). Chapter 1: Political Analyses. Subchapter: The President and His Powers, page 149-150., 2009

One of the marvelous things about him is that he is strong enough to force the men who dislike him the most to stand by him. By far he is the strongest man before the people to-day except Roosevelt. I think his greatest fault is his failure to accord credit to anyone for what he may have done. This is a great weakness in any man. I think it was one of the strongest things about Roosevelt. He never tried to minimize what other people did and often exaggerated it.

On Charles Evans Hughes, in November 1909, as quoted in Taft and Roosevelt : The intimate letters of Archie Butt (1930) by Archibald Willingham Butt, p. 224; this has sometimes been paraphrased: "Failure to accord credit to anyone for what he may have done is a great weakness in any man.", 1930

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.

Chapter 6., 1916

The world is not going to be saved by legislation.

Chapter 6., 1916

Substantial progress toward better things can rarely be taken with out developing new evils requiring new remedies.

P. 61., 1916

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.

1916

Presidents may go to the seashore or to the mountains. Cabinet officers may go about the country explaining how fortunate the country is in having such an administration, but the machinery at Washington continues to operate under the army of faithful non-commissioned officers, and the great mass of governmental business is uninterrupted.

1916

If I run as the regular Republican nominee, I may go down to defeat if a bolt is started by Roosevelt, but I will retain the regular organization of the party as a nucleus about which the conservative people who are in favor of maintaining constitutional government can gather, both from the Democratic and Republican parties, and we will have two radicals and one conservative.

1916

While the fabled cherry trees in Washington represent a suitable monument for Nellie Taft, there is no memorial to her husband, except perhaps the magnificent home for his Court—one for which he eagerly planned. But he died even before ground was broken for the structure. As he reacted to his overwhelming defeat for reelection in 1912, Taft had written that "I must wait for years if I would be vindicated by the people ... I am content to wait." Perhaps he has waited long enough.

Jonathan Lurie, William Howard Taft: Progressive Conservative (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 200, 1912

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.

Letter of Archibald Butt to Clara F. Butt (1 June 1909); reprinted in The Intimate Letters of Archie Butt (Doubleday, Doran, & Co., 1930)., 1909

If humor be the safety of our race, then it is due largely to the infusion into the American people of the Irish brain.

Irish Humor, address in Hot Springs, Virginia (5 August 1908) ., 1908

One advantage possessed by Mr. Taft over Mr. Hughes is that Mr. Taft is able to cover more ground—especially when sitting down.

The Butte Daily Post, "Editorials" (March 28, 1908), p. 4, 1908

The welfare of the farmer is vital to that of the whole country.

The Farmer and the Republican Party, address in Hot Springs, Virginia (5 August 1908) ., 1908

Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.

Don't worry over what the newspapers say. I don't. Why should anyone else? I told the truth to the newspaper correspondents - but when you tell the truth to them they are at sea.

The publishers profess to be the agents of heaven in establishing virtue and therefore that they ought to receive some subsidy from the government. I can ask no stronger refutation to this claim … than the utterly unscrupulous methods pursued by them in seeking to influence Congress on this subject.

Some men are graduated from college cum laude, some are graduated summa cum laude, and some are graduated mirabile dictu.

I'll be damned if I am not getting tired of this. It seems to be the profession of a President simply to hear other people talk.

No tendency is quite so strong in human nature as the desire to lay down rules of conduct for other people.