William Howard Taft Humor & Anecdotes
William Howard Taft Humor & Anecdotes
Taft Funny
Yes, the Taft administration did keep a cow at the White House. Two actually, as Mooley the cow died in 1910 and was replaced by Pauline. Nothing funny about that!
About Taft's humor from contemporaries
"His sense of humor carries him over a good many pitfalls, and sometimes there is a touch of Lincoln in the way he makes use of anecdotes to illustrate a point."
- Capt. Archie W. Butt, 1910 (Taft's Aide-de-Camp)
His laugh, his friend Jack Hammond wrote, was “a form of physical enjoyment. It would start far ahead of the point of an anecdote, when he began to think of something that amused him and was making up his mind to tell it. It began unexpectedly and softly, grew in volume and repetition, and was used to punctuate his sentences. This chuckle startled chuckles in his hearers. One of the most exciting memories of anyone who ever heard him make a speech was his ability to throw huge audiences into spasms of delighted laughter. This was neither a pose nor a trick. Taft was a great lover of laughter – and he liked to share his enjoyment.”
Classic Taft
Taft was accused of a rehashed, ten year old rumor. In reply he told the story of a restaurant patron to whom a waiter had to explain that oxtail soup came from the tail of the ox. "Neighbor," the man said, "don’t you think that’s goin’ a hell of a long way back for soup?"
A news article told a Taft tale from his early days as a reporter: "There was an alleged society publication in the town of Cincinnati whose principal function was to print infamous libels on everybody who was prominent in Cincinnati. There was no use in suing it for libel, and the only remedy was to thrash the editor whenever he was to be reached. This remedy had been tried by numerous aggrieved and muscular citizens without producing the least effect. Finally the sheet published a libel on Judge Alphonso Taft, the young reporter’s father, who had been a member of Grant’s Cabinet. Taft, Jr., saw it and did not like it. He hunted up the editor and asked if he were the editor. That person admitted it. ‘My name is Taft,’ said the large young reporter, ‘and my purpose is to whip you.’ Then wherewith he drubbed the libelous editor. That person had been drubbed before, as already narrated; but the drubbing administered by Taft was so monumental, cataclysmic, cosmic, and complete that on the following day the editor suspended publication and took himself thence. Cincinnati saw him no more. As for Taft, after thus purging the community, he washed his hands, and went down to the City Hall after an item for his paper."
Even by 1905 this story was old, but as an article that year noted, "It is such a good old story that it can never be printed too often":
When Taft was Governor of the Philippines he explored the mountainous islands. After a particularly arduous trip, he cabled to Secretary of State Elihu Root, "Rode forty miles on horseback to-day; feeling fine." Root wire back, "Glad you are feeling fine; how is the horse?"
Of his military service Taft said that he was "too young to fight in the Civil War and too fat to take part in the Spanish War."
A favorite Taft joke was of the girl dancing the waltz: "Momma," she said, worried, "should I keep time with the music or with the boys?"
President-elect Funny
A newly elected President receives all kinds of attentions, requests, gifts and honors. Many senders got a personal reply from Taft, including a Mrs. Fanny Francisco, of Grogan, Ohio: who found in her mail this item from the President-elect:
"My dear Madam,
I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of January 9th and to thank you for naming your baby after me. I hope he may have a long and prosperous life."
When Taft toured the Democrat-dominated South, he was applauded and feted everywhere. At Richmond, two men who witnessed him speak said to each other: "Taft is simply a bully fellow," declared one, "He is the kind of a man you love." Replied the other, "You bet he is. But by the way, are you going to vote for him next time?" "Vote for him? Vote for him?" exclaimed the first, "I’d rather see him in hell first."
The City of Atlanta threw a tremendous "’possom" dinner, for which the Georgia Governor ordered that the largest specimens be hunted down. ’Possum turned into a theme over which Taft quickly tired. He was given ’possum banquets and huge opossums were sent to the White House. A man even tried to present him with a live one during a speech. Taft finally let it out that while he appreciated the ‘possum dinners he "doesn’t hanker for it."
People named "Taft" wrote to the new President, usually to celebrate in the name-sake’s newfound glory, but sometimes to ask a favor, a job, or to expound upon policy. A cousin of some sort from Gloucester, MA, sent a fifteen-page letter of distress over some legislation. Taft replied, "I am very sorry that you think so badly… If I thought it was as bad a thing as you do, I certainly should not advocate it; but I believe you are frightened with ghosts."
The day of his inauguration the city of Washington, DC, was covered in ice. "Even the elements protest," Taft joked.
No News is Bad News
Two weeks into the Taft presidency reporters clamored for news. They had been accustomed to Roosevelt’s non-stop P.R. operation and felt that Taft was holding back. On this and the general complaint that Taft was not enough like Roosevelt, Taft declared, "The people of this country elected me, I believe, and, damn it, I am going to give it to them whether they like it or not."
In 1910, a reporter complained to Captain Butt, "Only this afternoon he killed four good stories: one that there was going to be a shake-up in the Cabinet; another, that he had not received one word from Mr. Roosevelt; another, that the Cardinal had called to talk about the incident in Rome; and the other, that he would lead off with a campaign speech at the Ohio dinner Saturday night." Butt replied, "What your going to write, then?" "Nothing," came the desperate answer.
Taft took much grief from the newspapers and magazines, but he dished it right back now and then. To a gathering of editors he talked about the criticism he was under in early 1910: "I had a letter the other day from a man who said: ‘I don’t like the tariff bill which was passed and which you signed. I don’t like your association with Joe Cannon. I don’t like your association with Aldrich. I don’t like what you are doing with respect to the magazines and the periodicals and suppressing free speech. I don’t like anything about your administration.’ Well, I sat down and dictated the following:
'My dear Sir: You are in a bad way.
- William H. Taft.’
About 3/4-the way down a copper mine, President Taft called to a group of reporters who had descended first, "How are you fellows down there." They called back, "We’d kind o’ like to get out." Taft laughed, "Well, I don’t know so much about that, I think I have you safe where I want you at last."
Presidential Examples
When a Reverend told Taft that he "prayed for the President of the United States every Sunday," | Taft replied that he hoped these prayers would continue, for, "My experience is that these prayers are needed."
During a horse back ride, Taft's party came upon a little boy who was fishing. Taft rode up to the boy and asked if he had caught any fish. "Not any yet," answered the boy. "Then what are you fishing for?" asked the President, smiling. The boy look up "quizzically" at the President for a moment, then said, "Is you Mr. Taft?" "Yes," said Taft. "Well, then I’m just-a-fishing to be a-fishing." The President laughed and said "I guess that is the way with most of us. ‘Just a-fishing to be a-fishing.’"
To a complaint from Congress over a special session he had called, Taft declared, "Senator Depew has sung his song with great beauty… It’s a little bit like the husband who had an invalid wife, and who wished she’d get well -- or something."
In early 1910, the stock market went to the bears. Panicked investors and editorialists demanded that the President do something. "They don’t frighten me at all with the cry of panic," Taft declared. He had no more patience for the outcries of businessmen than he did for that of immoderate reformers, all of whom he derided as peddlers of hysteria. Of the nation’s financiers Taft concluded, "Wall Street, as an aggregation, is the biggest ass that I have run across."
Of the presidential power of pardon, Taft wrote, "When a convict is near his end, it has been the custom to send him home to die. So, after having all the surgeons in the War Dept. examine them to see that the statements made to me about them were correct, I exercised the pardoning power in their favor. Well, one of them kept his contract and died, but the other seems to be one of the healthiest men in the community today."
On the death of a former Senator Taft said, "One of the troubles about getting beyond fifty is that so many men begin to fall about you. You think one year is an exception, but it is the same the next and then you begin to realize that you are among the eligibles yourself."
Big Bill
A reporter once asked War Secretary Taft his weight. "I won’t tell you," Taft replied, "But, you know, when somebody asked Speaker Reed that, he replied that no true gentleman would weigh more than 200 pounds. I have amended that to 300 pounds."
On a visit to Hong Kong War Secretary Taft was ported by coolies in a sedan chair that collapsed under him. The American consul demanded a sturdier chair. The contracted manufacturer voluntarily or otherwise swore to uphold the Secretary of War during his next visit: "I, the undersigned, Yu Wo… agree to make a sedan chair for the American consul general… This chair is to be used to carry the American giant, the Honorable William Howard Taft… it would obviously discredit this nation if the chair should disintegrate… To avert international complications of this sort, I, Yu Wo, assert my skill as a chairmaker."
"What are you going to name it when it comes, Mr. President?" asked Senator Chauncey Depew as he patted Taft’s huge stomach. "Well, if it is a boy I’ll call it William," replied Taft. "If it’s a girl, I’ll call it Theodora. But if it turns out to be just wind, I’ll call in Chauncey."
Taft’s narcolepsy is about as famous as his oversized White House bathtub (which, legend has it -- a story your author doubts -- that it had to be installed after he became stuck in one). He fell asleep anywhere: standing up, at church, during meetings, at the dinner table… The naps were usually momentary, and the President would generally pick up right where he left off, mid-sentence, sometimes. The disposition toward inadvertent slumber increased with his weight and anxiety, which went hand-in-hand, but it was also a tool which Taft used to keep up his workaholic pace. In 1911, amidst Taft’s usual race of New York excursions and other trips, his military aide wrote, "How Mrs. Taft stands the strain is more than I can see. The President stands it because… he has no nerves and sleeps while the rest stay awake. He has no conscience about taking naps when he is tired. If sleep overpowers him while he is talking with the Chief Justice or anyone else, he promptly closes his eyes and takes cat naps between sentences."
President Funny
After a late night dinner at the White House the President left his guest, Speaker of the House "Uncle Joe" Cannon, to receive a Senator. He soon returned to find the Speaker, Captain Butt and General Clarence Edwards smoking and listening to the "vitriola" record player. "The President at once began to waltz around the room by himself, and I was astonished to see the ease and grace with which he did it," wrote Butt. Cannon, whom Butt and Taft called, "The Evil One," jumped up and "capered around in a sort of ragtime shuffle." The officers kept their military dignity as the two most powerful men in the country danced about the room. Taft's military aide, Capt. Archie Butt loved his full dress uniform. Once, while getting a shave while wearing his gold-braided outfit, the barber didn’t say a word. Finally, he could not contain his curiosity. Drawing his breath he spurted out, ‘Say boss, do yo’ mind telling me what band you lead?’" Captain Archibald W. Butt Taft had no problem confronting unfriendly audiences or telling friendly audiences things they didn’t want to hear. Addressing a gathering of labor men, presidential candidate Taft said, "…as this discussion seems to involve some issue as to whether I am a deep tyrant, deep at heart an oppressor of labor and otherwise, I have got to submit evidence that I do not eat a laborer every morning for breakfast; that I am not engaged in fighting that which is the backbone and sinew of the nation, the laboring classes." To an invitation to join a barbers’ union Taft replied that he wasn’t eligible, for "I shave myself."
With politicians Taft could be forthright -- and at times brutal. When Senator Tillman gave a speech on race issues in the U.S. and Cuba, Taft followed with a vicious cut. "My friend, the distinguished Senator from South Carolina, I have known well, have been glad to know, have been honored by his friendship, and I want to assure you that he is a good deal better fellow than you sometimes think, from what he says. He is not always one who sits and talks, thinking about the race question and that sort of thing. He does have other thoughts, but when he gets on his feet and starts on that slippery subject, it requires a good deal of force or a good deal of poise to keep him from going further than he really wanted to go himself."
On a visit to Santa Fe in 1909 Taft was subjected to a critical speech by Albert B. Fall, who told the audience not to trust the President’s promise to seek statehood for New Mexico. Taft replied with the story of a lawyer in court. The judge said, "I don’t care to hear from you, I am with you," to which the lawyer demanded, "It is my constitutional right to be heard on this motion and I propose to be heard." The judge cut him off again, saying, "I have listened to you for an hour, and despite what you have said I am still with you." Speaker Cannon wanted a political appointment from Taft. "Now, Mr. President, let me look you straight in the eye and ask a favor." Taft replied, "Look me in the eye, always, for it makes it easier to deny you anything." Cannon was bitter about a Taft initiative that the President forced on the Congress at the end of Cannon’s final days as Speaker in early 1911. A few months later Taft encountered the former Speaker at a restaurant. All but Cannon greeted the President. Taft paid him no mind and proceeded to his table. Afterwards and bolstered by drink Cannon approached the President’s table and gave an exaggerated bow. Taft looked up with complete disinterest, paused, then continued his conversation with his guests. Cannon left humiliated. Of the incident Major Butt wrote, "When the President cuts anybody, that body is cut, and there is no explanation to make. That ends it." Western Senators who were furious at Taft’s land conservation policies railed at the President. One angrily said, "Then, Mr. President, as we are to understand it, you are going to do as you damn please without consulting the interests of those states mostly affected." Showing what Captain Butt recognized as "that little glint" in his eye that meant anger, as well as a bit of Lincoln, Taft calmly told the story of cantankerous" and "irate" farmer who complained to the school teacher over a punishment his son was given. Said the farmer, "It appears to me that you expect to run this school as you damn please." Taft repeated to the Senators the teacher’s reply: "Your language is coarse, your manner offensive, but you have grasped my idea." At a campaign stop a cabbage was tossed towards Taft and landed at his feet. "I see that one of my adversaries has lost his head," was his sublime retort. "Let him wait," Taft told Captain Butt regarding the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador’s impatience over a delayed appointment. " A man with the name of Hengelmuller should not want me to leave my lunch." Taft did lack one of the primary skills of a politician: the ability to remember names. Again, it was as much because he didn’t care as for an inability. Besides, he grew most adept at sidestepping the name thing, anyway. When he was Secretary of War he greeted White House visitors in a receiving line. Captain Butt asked a man for his name in order to present him to the War Secretary. The man refused, stating he and Taft were old friends and there was no need for introduction. The Captain insisted, without success. Meanwhile, the line progressed, and Taft found himself facing a stranger. Taft looked pleadingly at the Captain, who could only shrug. Seeing that the situation was helpless, Taft reached his hand out high and sweepingly drove it down and firmly into the stranger’s hand. Then he turned to his wife and said, "You remember our dear old friend here," and before Mrs. Taft could say anything to the contrary, Taft had moved the man past him and was on to greeting the next person in line. Impressed by the magnanimous greeting, Mrs. Taft asked who he was. Taft replied, "My darling, I have not the faintest idea who he is, but I saw he was an intimate friend by the way he stood poised on one foot waiting to be recognized." Later, the unidentified man approached the Captain and proudly said, "I told you there was no need to present me!" Butt wrote that when Taft calls someone "Old man" or "Old boy" it meant that he had no idea who the person was. "He makes great use of a slap on the back, a confidential push, and always in evidence is that broad genial smile which simply envelopes one.