You guys might remember that I had complained about all the "big" (no pun intended) president's birthdays being over. We've already celebrated the FDRs, Lincolns, and Washingtons of the world. I've been looking forward to Teddy, but that's about it. And people told me that one or two left might surprise me. Herbert Hoover did. But not because he was a great president, he was just an interesting guy. And Taft is another one of those. I kind of like him, and I'll be honest. I was one of those "bathtub" people before this. (You'll see what I'm talking about later.)
Today we have our only September birthday. The only other president with a month all to themselves was good old George H.W. Bush (you know we love him here, he wrote us back after all!) With a month all to yourself, you get a very individualized poster board. Since we were so late with LBJ's birthday, I got this new Taft up just in time. You can't see, but I gave him chest hair. He seems like the type of guy who had chest hair.
I also thought it was appropriate to have a snack for Taft's birthday timeline. The prohibition cocktails are a nod to first lady Nellie Taft (you'll see that later), and the almonds were an Old Bill favorite.
In case you didn't know, William Howard Taft was our heaviest president. (James Madison was our smallest). In the mid-1800's, Cincinnati was a huge meat packing hub, and it earned the nickname "Porkopolis". It's awfully fitting that a place called Porkopolis was the home to our most glutton-es president.
Alphonso Taft was a no nonsense yet fair and level headed guy. He was smart, and by the book. He was married, and had two kids with his first wife. But, she died.
Alphonso then married Louisa Marie, she was kind and super smart, but a free spirit, adventurous gal. They had four more kids, including a son, William Howard Taft.
Now, the Taft family was a prominent family. Alphonso worked under President Sam Grant...
...and Chester Arthur. (So far all I know about him is mutton chops, pants and elegance!)
Taft had a pretty normal childhood. He played some sports (mostly baseball), and got good grades. (His favorite subject was math) But Bill was always a pretty big boy, and often got teased for his weight. He learned to take all of that in stride. But, the reason (according to most scholars) he was overweight came from his social and family anxiety. He placed a lot of pressure on himself to be good at everything he did, and lived in constant fear of not meeting his parents expectations. He was always anxious about their approval. It wasn't to JQA proportions, but it wasn't great.
Bill went off to college at Yale, a natural selection for him since his father was an alumni.
In college, people were still talking about his weight. His friends may have called him Old Bill, but everyone around campus just called him "Big Lub".
He joined the debate club and played tennis and golf, and..
despite his size, he was pretty good at horseback riding.
His size worked to his advantage when he joined the wrestling team.
After college, Bill headed back to Cincinnati for law school, where he passed the bar and started practicing law.
This is Helen Louis, but everyone calls her Nellie.
Nellie's dad is kind of a big deal, and he's buddies with another Ohioian, R.B. Hayes, who just happens to be president. A 15 year old Nellie gets to go to the White House for the Hayes's 25th Wedding Anniversary, and she LOVES it.
Nellie decides right then and there, her dream is to become First Lady of the United States.
But Nellie isn't the picture of a First Lady. Nellie is intelligent, and energetic. But, she's also a bit of a rebel, a lover of drinking and smoking. She mixed whiskey and milk and played poker for cash.
And when she met Bill at a bobsledding party (no, for real, a bobsledding party), they hit it off. Maybe because of his handlebar mustache, or maybe because he looked like he was going places. Who's to say.
Five years later, Nellie and Bill get married. They have three kids: Robert, Helen, and Charles.
Now, Nellie's dream may have been the White House. But, Bill's dream is to serve on the Supreme Court.
Partly because he's good at what he does, and is a fair and just lawyer and judge, and partly because he knows the right people and is around at the right time (when appointments are to be made), Bill works his way up the ladder of the judicial branch. It's worth noting, only ONE of the positions he held was he elected to (Judge in the Ohio Superior Court), and even then he had already been appointed to fill a term until the election. That was the only elected office that he had held until (spoiler alert) he became president.
Ben Harrison became president, and appointed Bill U.S. Solicitor General. You don't need to know what that is, but it's like the third highest position at the justice department. At 32, Bill was the youngest one there ever was. He and Nellie moved to D.C., and she was happy to be there. Bill was going places!
And meeting people! During his time in D.C. he befriended a civil service commissioner by the name of TEDDY- FREAKING- ROOSEVELT! Tank for Teddy! (Oh wait.. nevermind!)
Anyway, two years later Bill's got a new job. He's serving as a judge on the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. He has jurisdiction over Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee and Kentucky. Kind of a big deal, way to go Bill. Except, Nellie didn't think so. Being back in Ohio just made her feel further from the White House. And, I mean, Ohio... blah. I'm with ya, Nellie!
But then,William McKinley becomes president, and there's the Spanish-American War. If you don't remember all that business, click on the link people, that's what it's there for!
Really, the link, folks. I don't have all day to teach you history.
So, William wins that. Because he's awesome, and he had his lucky carnation that day. Then he sends a telegram asking Bill to head to D.C. Bill is all "hey Nellie, what do you think this means?" and Nellie is all "OMG! WE'RE GOING BACK TO D.C!"
So, they head on back and see what McKinley wants.
Turns out, he got the Philippines and some other countries he didn't know where they were, and we needs someone to you know, set up a government there. Constitutions, implementing laws, all that business. So, he enlists Taft to head on over and be the governor. Bill is like "I don't know, that doesn't seem like Supreme Court Justice to me", and Nellie is all "seems like a stepping stone to get me into the White House, let's go!" As you'll see, Nellie seems to be able to talk Bill into just about anything, so off the Taft's go.
Now, McKinley is running for reelection, and Bill already put in a good word for his buddy Teddy to make him assistant secretary of the Navy, so he again puts in a good word for Teddy to be VP.
Then, you know. Sorry William McKinley.
With Teddy now in office (and the youngest guy to ever be president to boot! Don't let those JFK facts fool you, he's simply the youngest ELECTED president), it was now his turn to call Bill to D.C. This time he wanted Bill to be his Secretary of War.
As such, Bill got to travel a whole lot (more than the rest of the cabinet combined, practically!)-- to Cuba, and the Philippines. And he also got to oversea the construction of the Panama Canal. Which, seems like a cool gig.
But eventually reporters start to ask where all this money for Bill's travel is coming from. So, Bill's brother starts bankrolling all his trips to keep the American people happy.
Teddy ran in the next election, and won, but he announced that he wouldn't run again.
Teddy later regretted his decision, but felt like he had to honor it. The next best thing to being president again was hand picking your successor, especially when it's a guy you're pretty sure you can control. Long story short, Bill was all "eh... president?" and Nellie was all "Of course, Teddy, Bill can run (and I can FINALLY BE FIRST LADY!!)"
So, Bill runs, and his brother (that bankrolling trips brother), and Teddy campaign for him. Bill doesn't really do much of it. But, he does promise to lose 30 pounds.
Taft is running against another guy who made some appearances in a few presidential time lines long ago, William Jennings Bryan. (He twice ran against McKinley and lost). Taft's dislike for campaigning was obvious. But, everyone said his sluggish style was just a new type of politics, who refused to say anything negative about his opponents.
People joked TAFT stood for Take Advice from Teddy. Whatever it was, it worked.
William Howard Taft was elected, Teddy got what he wanted, and Nellie was about to live her dream.
The only people unhappy about this development were three time loser William Jennings Bryan, and toy manufactures. They were convinced the teddy bear with die without Teddy as president.
So what was next for those toy makers? Well, Taft helped them out when on a campagin stop he ate possum (and found it rather enjoyable). Toy makers rushed to make Billy the Possums (You have NO idea how much I want a Billy the Possum now, guys!), an possum became a delicacy. They went from being $1 an animal to $10. But, Bill got sick of the possums real quick. People would serve him it wherever he went, and he was getting tons of live possums sent to him in cages! Needless to say, the Teddy Bear stuck around. And good luck finding me a Billy the Possum.
So, here we are at Old Bill's inauguration, and he's not thrilled about it. He basically tells everyone around him, he knows this is going to suck. Also, there's a giant winter storm that slams D.C. the night before, and the oath of office has to be moved inside. But that doesn't stop Nellie from celebrating. She rides to the White House in the carriage with Bill, becoming the first First Lady to do so.
Teddy, meanwhile, heads off to hunt game in Africa with his buddies, because he's Teddy and that's awesome. (Probably not polar bears, but I was short on wild animal props).
Problems arise quickly for Bill though. You see the Republican party is pretty split. There's Teddy's Progressive Republican bunch who's all 'hey, lets get those big business types with tarrifs and restricting federal land, and filing more anti-trust lawsuits!" and the Conservative Republicans who are all 'Let Big Business take over America!". Teddy had wit, and charisma. He kept the party together, despite their differences. But, Bill lacked the Teddy-isms, and without really picking a side just seemed wishy-washy. Besides, Teddy supporters had been promised they were electing another Teddy, and now that the truth that Bill was no Teddy was painfully obvious, they wanted their money back.
Things came to a head with the Payne-Aldrich Tariff. Basically, everyone figured Taft would veto the bill, and side with Teddy's Progressive Republicans. But, Taft, being the law guy he was thought the president could only veto things in extreme circumstances (and Teddy stretched his powers just a little too much for Taft's rule-book following ways), and ultimately Bill let the tariff go through. Progressives were pissed.
Things went from bad to worse when Nellie suffered a stroke. Bill was pretty devastated. Nellie couldn't walk or talk. Her sisters took over the First Lady duties while Nellie recuperated.
But this was Nellie Tafts dream, and she wasn't going to let a stroke get her down. Slowly but surely, she recovered, and she through the social event of the year when her and Bill were celebrating their 25th anniversary, just like when she attended the 25th anniversary party of the Hayes's many years before. It was a blow out party of 8,000 guests.
(Though it's possibly people attended because even during prohibition Nellie, being the rebel she was, was a "wet" served alcohol in the White House.) Nellie also had another big contribution as First Lady. She planted the cherry trees along the tidal basin in Washington D.C. (She fell in love with the trees during her time in the Philippines. .
But all the cherry trees in the world couldn't help Taft. He just hated being president.
...and he often called the White House "the lonliest place in the world".
He avoided spending time there, and played golf just to get out.
But, Bill was a stress eater. And eat he did. He never met a food he didn't like (though he wasn't fond of eggs), but he loved almonds, taffy, strawberries and oysters. Food became the only thing that would cheer him up, and he gained all the weight he lost during the campaign plus then some.
All his eating resulted in a whole lot of burping and farting (which embarrassed his staff when he was in front of foreign dignitaries.) He would eat so much that he got sleepy and would pass out in the middle of meetings and conversations. He was seen sleeping at funerals, and operas, and in church. He even once fell asleep during a parade-- where he was the main attraction!
And then there were the bathtub stories. There's no actual written evidence that he ever got stuck in a bathtub in the White House. But he did have two separate documented bathtub "incidents" if you want to call them that. When he worked for Teddy, and was headed to Panama to check out the canal, the boat he was traveling on installed a huge bathtub just to make sure he would fit (the bathtub was later said to have been put in the White House.) On another occasion, Bill didn't account for water displacement when he got in the tub. It resulted in water going everywhere, including dripping down to the floor below.
Teddy returned from Africa and heard all these stories about Taft (mostly about the tariff issues, less about the bathtub), and he was all "wait. Taft did what?!" (He also fired some of Teddy's staff, which didn't please Teddy all that much).
Things might have been fixed between the BFF's if they had met in person, but instead they corresponded through letters and mutual friends.
And things just escalated. Teddy was ripping Taft in public, but Bill didn't want to say a bad thing about Teddy. He really didn't like to be in the middle of arguments, always searching for a compromise (which coincidentally is what pissed off each side of the Republican party). Eventually, Bill couldn't take it anymore, and while running for the primary for his second term, he finally snapped and publicly bashed Teddy's radical policies. But this is where I was just heartbroken. It's said that right after that happened, a reporter found Bill sitting alone, face in his hands. He had been crying, and said "Roosevelt was my closest friend."
Taft's presidency was not without it's accomplishments. He stimulated the economy with a new parcel post service, he created the U.S. Department of Labor, and under his watch the 16th amendment (federal income tax), and the 17th amendment (Senators elected by the people) were added to the Constitution.
He also saw the formation of the NAACP, with a rush of African American citizens from the south to places in the north like Chicago and Detroit, to find jobs. The racial geography of America changed dramatically. The actual geography of the continental United States was complete with the addition of the last of the lower 48: New Mexico, and Arizona.
His foreign policy was less successful with his "Dollar Diplomacy" (essentially using money to make people do what you want in simplest terms).
His presidency also saw some firsts and lasts. He was the first president to have a presidential car (he replaced the stables with a garage), and the first president to throw at the first pitch of the MLB season. He was the last president to rock facial hair, and the last president to keep a cow on the White House Lawn. Quick fun story about Pauline Wayne (the cow).... She was a beauty and produced gallons of milk a day, and so she was wanted in some Dairy Expo in Milwaukee. But the train car carrying her got lost in route. There was a frenzy of telegrams trying to find her, and she was located in a Chicago stockyard a few days later, where she barely avoided getting slaughtered. Poor Pauline.
Oh, and things for Bill just kept getting worse. This is his military confident, Archie Butt. Archie worked for Teddy too, and the guys were all buddies. Bill was awaiting Archie's arrival back in the states, as he had been vacationing over in Europe and was about to take a cruise back to the U.S.
Except, that cruise liner was the Titanic, and Archie never made it home. Bill was beside himself.
So, re-election. You'd think Bill wouldn't run again. But you know Nellie wanted him to. So, he did. And when Teddy didn't win the nomination, he was off to form his own party, yay Moose! But you see, if you take the Republicans and subtract or divide out the Moose, you end up with a donkey. And that lucky donkey was Democrat Woodrow Wilson.
Nellie did what she could. She even showed up at the Democratic Convention to sit right in front of Woodrow, knowing he wouldn't bash her husband with her sitting right there (for the record, it did work!). But ultimately, the Republican party/ies couldn't be split on the vote and expect one of them to win. Teddy and Taft together got over 50% of the vote, but Woodrow ended up as the winner.
Taft had suffered a greater defeat than any other sitting president, but he was actually pretty thrilled. He had pep in his step, and he started losing weight (80 pounds! All by cutting out bread, potatoes, pork and alcohol). Nobody enjoyed his lame duck period more than him. After the presidency, he went off to enjoy his life, and write, and travel the world and throw parties with Nellie, and teach law at Yale. He ended up as president of the Lincoln memorial commission, and supported Woodrow Wilson through the war (mostly, he was for peace, and all that, but who isn't?)
And just six months before Teddy died, the old friends turned enemies met up one last time. They were cordial, but never rekindled their friendship. However, Bill was grateful for the meeting and said "had he died in a hostile state of mind to me, I would have mourned that fact all my life. I loved him always, and I cherish his memory." Aw....
When Woodrow Wilson was done, Warren Harding was next in line. And Harding, who was sleazy and terrible (that's about all I know), promised Bill that as soon as an opening came on the Supreme Court, Bill would be next. Lucky for Bill (and not so lucky for some other guy), the Chief Justice kicked the bucket, and Bill was in.
To be clear, Bill had been offered this job before. But he was always in the middle of working for some president, and felt bad about abandoning his post. This time he was finally free to take his dream job, and he was thrilled. Bill considered his time as Chief Justice to be the highest point of his career, and his greatest accomplishment. He would tell his friends he didn't even remember that he had ever been president.
As Chief Justice, Taft swore in both Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. He's the only president to swear in another president. (Inn my head, I picture him leaning over and telling them to run the other way before they take that oath!)
He also successfully lobbied for the Supreme Court Building to be built. (That's a picture of the boys and my mom on the Supreme Court Steps, FYI) Before that, the court was held inside the Capitol Building.
Bill had several heart attacks in his later years. All that food caught up to him. When he swore in Herbert Hoover, he forgot part of the oath. He was slowing down, and he was losing his memory. He decided it was time to step down. Five weeks later on March 8, 1930, William Howard Taft died at the age of 72 from heart disease and high blood pressure.
He was the first president there, and one of two. Obviously, JFK is the other.
So where exactly does Taft fair when you're talking legacy? I mean, not all that great. He's middle of the pack at best. At lets face it, he may have been the only person to hold the highest office in both the Judicial and Executive branches of government, but you still just remember him for the bathtub story!
His son's kept the Taft political machine alive. Robert was a well respected Senator, and Charles was the mayor of Porkopolis- Er, I mean Cincinnati. His grandson actually worked for both Ronald Regan and George W. Bush! The truth is however big his actual feet were, he could never fill the metophorical shoes of Teddy Roosevelt, and he's not remembered as a great president or a great Chief Justice, even if he was smart and honest with a great devotion to public service.
But, I mean, he did get added to the Washington Nationals president line up in 2013, so there's that. (Has anyone seen the brand new Sports Center Commercial with those guys? Amazing! And the timing couldn't have been better!)
Oh, and I don't know why his PEZ is in blue, he's a Republican! But it sure had the boys confused.
His hashtag:
Can some1 get @TheBigTR to unblock me? #WhatHappenedToUs?
We made our cards.
In honor of Nellie's planting of the cherry trees, we had a couple of crafts to choose from.
Calib's finished branch.
Peyton's finished tree...
And Hayden's finished tree...
We added our quote...
...fun facts...
..and presidential issues to the bathtub board.
Coolest bathtub collage I've seen all week!
For dinner we had all Bills favorite: Steak (cooked in garlic butter!), mashed potatoes, biscuits with honey and strawberries. Funny enough, I couldn't find his favorite veggie, but we added one in anyway with some roast asparagus.
And just like that, September is done. BAM! (I do have 3 in the first 5 days of October though, so I better get those done ASAP).
Asa's in the office this week, so that suuuuuuuuuuucks. Not only do I not have Asa to hang out with, and to help me with stuff, but I have to make dinner, and I don't get coffee. Seriously, I don't know how people do it. At home, we're back to book work this week, we've got some new checklists going, I made some new cards to buy, and we're implementing some new rules this week, so we'll see how it goes. If everyone does good with their work, we're playing a game each night this week for points, as kind of a mini game week.
I'm a day late on the blog though, I had half of it done before we started Facetime with my mom, and than an hour later I was just like "yea, I'll do that tomorrow." Also, fun story, we're going to go to the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party the night before the cruise. And the day before that is Marine Quest, and it's a Bucs bye week, so they can't even lose. I'm calling it best week ever, right now.
Up Next: Cracker Country Home School Day, a Rays Game, and (hopefully) a zoo and/or Disney day!
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