William Howard Taft & the First Motoring Presidency book synopsis

William Howard Taft & the First Motoring Presidency, 1909-1913: book synopsis

Book Overview

William Howard Taft was an unlikely hero to progress. He was painted by his enemies and, since, by history, as a conservative, ineffective president, who for four years obstructed the "Progressive Era."

In this innovative book by Michael L. Bromley, history is given a new chapter on Taft and his era. Taft fought for orderly progress in politics, society, and automobiles, a legacy that until now has been untold.

Coming into office in 1909, Taft decided upon bringing the Motor Age in with him. His famed and beloved predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, shunned automobiles.

In fact, Roosevelt avoided them like a political plague. His horseman image was crafted for popular image, to which the automobile was an ugly association to wealth. Following Roosevelt's example, in 1906 the president of Princeton University, one Woodrow Wilson, stated:

Nothing has spread Socialistic feeling in this country more than the use of automobiles. To the countryman they are a picture of arrogance of wealth with all its independence and carelessness

Taft had a different view:

I am sure the automobile coming in as a toy of the wealthier class is going to prove the most useful of them all to all classes, rich and poor.

Indeed.

Following Taft's endorsement of the automobile, the industry exploded. In his first year in office, annual production grew 125% over the previous year, and the industry entered its highest ever period of growth.

Under Taft, the automobile came to the American people. While Henry Ford made the automobile for the masses, William Howard Taft brought the masses to the automobile.

This book argues that Taft brought order to an era addicted to change, fighting the extremes of both the progressive and reactionary movements.

Doing so Taft defined the progressive era as much as any other. The author writes,

Irony is the flavor of the Taft presidency. He disliked strife and politics. He got and gave both in abundance. He didn’t like the income tax, and he didn’t want the Federal government to pay for interstate roads. He launched them both. He was a progressive, and he buried the progressives with his conservatism, all the while advancing their cause in the law.

But irony is not the final product of the Taft presidency. Taft kept his nation from the extremes of his age. His presidency was critical to what we call America today.

If the author must identify his single most important achievement, it is this: he distilled the era of its extra-constitutional meanderings and prevented that dipsomaniac slide toward state control and the weakening of the courts and the Constitution that were among the lesser impulses of the progressive movement.

- Michael L. Bromley, 2003