(Originally published by the Daily News on March 9, 1930.)
WASHINGTON, D.C., March 8 — William Howard Taft died at 5:15 p.m. today.
Surrendering at last to a combination of ailments, the former President and chief justice passed away after lingering for weeks at the point of death. He was 72.
He died peacefully at his home on Wyoming Ave., with Mrs. Taft at his bedside. His two sons had returned to Cincinnati recently.
Funeral arrangements, still incomplete, contemplate a ceremony attended by the highest officials of the government. It is undecided whether entombment will be at Washington or Cincinnati.
The end came a few hours after Associate Justice Edward Terry Sandford of the United States Supreme Court died suddenly at his home following a collapse in his dentist’s office.
Congress to Recess.
The federal government he served over four decades will observe a period of official mourning by proclamation of President Hoover.
Congress and the Supreme court will recess. Flags on government buildings and army and navy stations throughout the world will be put at half-staff.
A congressional committee of twenty senators and twenty representatives will attend the funeral.
Taft had been confined to his home since Feb. 4, when he returned to Washington from Ashville., N.C., where he had gone for rest and recuperation. The day previous he had resigned as chief justice.
Suffered From Old Ailment.
Suffering from an old nervous disorder, a bladder complaint and heart trouble, his condition was aggravated of late by hardening of the arteries.
Dr. Francis R. Hagner announced tonight that a sudden stroke of cerebro arterio sclerosis (hardening of the brain arteries) caused Taft’s death.
The doctors abandoned hope for his ultimate recovery weeks ago, and last Thursday said it was only a matter of time.
Hoovers Aid Widow.
He spent these last days generally in a comatose state. Drs. Hagner and Thomas A. Claytor visited him several times daily, issuing regular bulletins through the White House.
President and Mrs. Hoover are placing the facilities of the White House at Mrs. Taft’s disposal for such help as she may need.
President Hoover as soon as he was advised of the death of Taft called at the home to pay his respects. He was accompanied by Charles Evans Hughes, who replaced Taft as chief justice.
Mrs. Hoover accompanied her husband and Mr. Hughes. The three entered the big mansion together.
Washington Sorrows.
In official and unofficial Washington, which loved him, the news of the former president’s death stirred a great outpouring of sorrowful tributes. This mentioned the wide regard with which he was held both as chief executive and Chief Justice of the nation.
Charles Evans Hughes, who succeeded to the chief justiceship after Taft’s resignation last month, said the people had “recompensed his endeavors in their behalf with a warmth of affection which perhaps has never been so universally felt toward a public officer during his own time.”
Patrick J. Hurley, who holds the war secretaryship which Taft had in the Roosevelt administration, said the army mourned “the loss of a friend.”
Officials Pay Tribute.
“A great, a fine life,” said acting Secretary Cotton of the state department; while acting Secretary Jahncke of the navy said Mr. Taft was “a great American citizen, always considerate of the human feelings of his fellow man.”
Senator William E. Borah of Idaho mourned the ending of “a marvelous career” and the passing of “a most lovable character.”
Senator Walsh of Montana, acting democratic leader of the senate, said, “no one ever doubted his integrity or his devotion to his country.”
Neither Dr. Hagner nor Dr. Claytor were at his bedside when the end came.
A Dr. Fuller, who was summoned by the nurses when they were unable immediately to reach the attending physicians, pronounced the former chief justice dead.
Dr. Claytor arrived fifteen minutes later.
When the end came unexpectedly, the activity which has surrounded the Taft residence since his return from Asheville had almost ceased, only a few cars were in front of the home. Shortly thereafter taxicabs arriving with newspaper men gave notice of the death.
First word of the death was sent to the White House, which announced it to the press in the following bulletin:
“Former Chief Justice Taft died at 5:15 p.m. today.”
Dr. Claytor at 6:30 p.m. tonight issued a formal bulletin saying the former chief justice had undergone a sudden change at 4:45 p.m., from which he failed to rally.
The funeral will be conducted probably Tuesday from the Unitarian church here which Taft attended during all his life in the capital.
William Howard Taft, twenty-seventh President of the Unites States, was hand-picked for the office by Theodore Roosevelt in 1908.
In 1912 Roosevelt carried out his threat to hamstring his renomination. Taft was renominated and Woodrow Wilson was swept into power through the split in the Republican party caused by Roosevelt’s bull moose defection.
Taft took his defeat just as cheerfully as he had said he would. Smiling he welcomed Wilson into the White House March 4, 1913, and smilingly he retired to Yale college to become Kent professor of law in the university.
For eight years he remained in the comparative insecurity of his professorship, emerging only when impelled to proclaim his advocacy of a larger army and navy before this country entered the World War and his earnest support of the League of Nations covenant, with or without reservations.
Then, on Oct. 11, 1921, he achieved his real life ambition, accepting from president Harding the nomination to be Chief Justice of the Supreme court of the United States.
William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, O., Sept. 15, 1857.
Early in his youth young Taft showed his scholarly aptitude, graduating from Woodward. High School, Cincinnati, at seventeen into Yale, where he became class orator and salutatorian of the 1878 class, taking his B.A. degree.
Two years later, 1880, young Taft got his LL.B. in the Cincinnati Law School, taking first prize in his class. In later years he was showed with degrees from Yale Harvard, Princeton, Hamilton, Pennsylvania, Cincinnati, Oxford (England), McGill, and other colleges. But be prized most his L.L.B. at Cincinnati, which enabled him to hang out his shingle as a lawyer.
Named to Judgeship.
Finding clients few, he took to law reporting, working first for his brother’s paper and then for the Cincinnati Commercial. But this was unsatisfactory. A political move gave him the position of internal revenue collector at $4,500 a year, but he gave this up to become, at much less salary, assistant prosecutor of Hamilton County, O., which he held till 1883, when he went back to the practice of law.
A couple of years as assistant county solicitor from 1885 to 1887 found him appointed to be judge of the Superior court in Cincinnati, which he held till 1890.
Benjamin Harrison was President then and he sent for Judge Taft and offered him the post of solicitor general of the United States, a job which entails more work than glory. Taft was but thirty-three, but he displayed such skill of the Bering Sea seal fisheries dispute with Great Britain and the elucidation of the first McKinley tariff bill that in 1892 he was appointed United States circuit judge for the sixth circuit, embracing Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee and Kentucky.
Honored by McKinley.
He held his position till 1900, rendering decisions on labor controversies and the enforcement of the Sherman anti-trust act which startled the country and were upheld completely by the Supreme court. Her had become meanwhile professor and Jean of law school at Cincinnati university, but his decisions made him a national figure.
President McKinley sent for him in 1900 and ordered him the post of chairman of the United States Philippine commission, which he accepted.
President Roosevelt, who had succeeded to the White House through the assassination of McKinley, sent Taft, at the latter’s suggestion, to Rome to consult with Pope Leo XIII on the subject of the property owned in the islands by religious orders under the old Spanish regime.
When Taft left the Philippines in January 1904 to become secretary of war under Roosevelt, his departure brought grief to the Filipinos, whose friend he had become. During this period he three times refused an offer to become an associate justice of the United States Supreme court, an honor to which he dearly aspired. But he felt that he could not desert the Filipinos and in accepting the cabinet post as secretary of war he did so only because as such he would have supervision over the government of the Philippines.
Roosevelt, who admired Taft’s administrative ability, kept him busy. Twice between 1904, and 1908, when he was elected President. Taft was sent on trips which took him around the world. He put down, by civil methods, the insurrection in Cuba, he supervised the construction of the Panama Canal, he inspected Puerto Rico, visited Japan, where he cheered the subjects and the statesmen of the Mikado by assuring them America was their friend, not their enemy.
He dropped in on the Philippines again and made a trip over the Siberian continental railroad, coming back by way of Europe.
Roosevelt, putting aside the idea of what was being called a third term for himself, preached Taft to politicians high and low, night and day, until in June, 1908, the Republican Convention nominated William Howard Taft on the first ballot amid tremendous enthusiasm. Bryan ran against him on the Democratic ticket an Taft won by about 1,370,000 plurality. Women did not vote then, and that was considered a magnificent victory.
His first step on becoming President was to summon Congress to extra session to pass what was afterward called the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill. Its terms were in line with the promises of the Republicans, but when Taft, in an indiscreet moment, pronounced it “the best Tariff bill over passed” a storm of opposition arose which the Democrats took such good advantage of in 1910 that they elected a Democratic House of Representatives. The Senate, with a dissatisfied Republican element, was not easy to manage, and this President Taft found himself in the middle of his term riding a bucking horse.
President Taft was no politician. He had no astuteness, no ear to the ground and no ability or desire to strikes the popular chord by some opportune speech or act. But by sheer doggedness he saw safely through Congress a lot of legislation which he was bent upon.
The laws for the publication of campaign funds and contributions, for regulating the Panama Canal tolls, for halting the white slave traffic and for the adoption of the income tax amendment were all Taft measures. He settled the Mexican boundary dispute in Texas, put a final end to the Bering sea controversy and put through the arbitration treaty for the Atlantic fisheries.
The earnest advocate of arbitration treaties with all countries, he much deplored the action of the Senate in refusing, during his term, to ratify the treaties he had concluded with great Britian and with Canada. But he took his defeats as goodhumoredly as his victories,.
Theodore Roosevelt, returning from his African hunting trip in 1910, secretly anxious for his own renomination, according to some observers socially and politically opposed to Taft for private reasons, according to others, began almost immediately a crush against the Taft administration. Walter came to his wheel in the shape of the Ballinger-Pinchot Alaska coal controversy.
President Taft’s indiscriminate application of the Sherman antitrust laws against the International Harvester, Standard Oil, Steel and other corporations antagonized a large section of big business, and through George W. Perkins, formerly of the Morgan banking house, but now a backer of Roosevelt, big business began to apply the big stick to President Taft,
The result was that though Taft was renominated by the Republicans, the Progressives under Roosevelt made hash of the campaign and the Democrats elected Woodrow Wilson. Taft carried only two states in the whole election.
His good nature, pleasant personality, ruddy, smiling face and great bulk of cheerful human nature stood him in good stead when he took up law teaching again at Yale.
President at fifty-one, he became tenth Chief Justice of the Supreme court at sixty-three.
His wife, Helen Taft, to whom he was married in 1886, bore him three children, Robert, Charles and Helen.
“He Belonged to All of Us,” Says Coolidge.
Former President Calvin Coolidge, who reached New York not long after Mr. Taft’s death became known here, was one of the first of numerous men in public life to express his grief.
“William Howard Taft’s public service extended over a generation,” said the ex-President. “To me he was a friend, kindly, genial and helpful. He came often to my office when I was in Washington, and always brought mature thought and good cheer.
“I join with millions of fellow citizens in my expressions of sympathy for his family. He belonged to all of us.”
Other statements included.
Alfred E Smith: “He served his country in the highest tradition of American ideals. He will be mourned by a nation that knows how to value its great men.”
Maj. Gen. James G. Harbod: “His death comes at the end of one of the most useful lives ever given America by a public man.”
Joseph H. Choate Jr.: “Every one knows that this nation has lost one of its greatest men and greatest public servants.”
James J. Walker: “One of our country’s best loved men is gone.”
Elihu Root: “I am very much grieved. He was a great-hearted and noble man.”
Published via News wire services
