Little Joys: The Taft Children

When Taft was elected President, his eldest son,
 Robert, was just becoming a man. After the
 Christmas, 1908, vacation in Georgia, Taft sent
 Robert back to Cincinnati, and he asked his
 sister-in-law for some help. "Bob will leave here
 Tuesday morning to go girling," he wrote. "We
 are longing to have Bob catch the disease with
 so much infantile exaggeration as to really give
 him what Bourne calls in golf, a ‘sensation.’
 Steer him right and don’t let the girls flush him out
 of any particular preference that he has by too
 great ridicule at first. Let them get him well
 hooked before they try to take it out on him."

The strategy eventually worked. Before long, a
 Miss Martha Bowers became a regular guest at
 the White House, and, sure enough, she
 eventually became Mrs. Robert A. Taft.

When Robert first arrived to Harvard Law School
 he was quizzed at a party by a woman who
 wanted to confirm his family credentials:
"Where are you from?" she asked.
"Ohio."
"Do you go there for the holidays?"
"No. The family is in Washington now."
"What does your father do?"
"He has a government job."
"Where does he live?"
"On Pennsylvania Avenue."

Daughter Helen once tried the opposite tact at a
 Philadelphia shoe store. She was annoyed by
 the sales girl who insisted on certain styles.
 Helen made her own selection, anyway. Thinking
 "what a satisfaction it was going to be to reveal
 her identity to the patronizing and offensive
 young person," she proudly asked that the
 charges be sent to Mrs. William Howard Taft.
 The clerk replied, "Address?"
 "Washington," said Helen, astonished.
 "D.C.?" asked the clerk.

Helen suffered another uncomfortable bout of
 anonymity when she motored through Maryland
 one day. At a tollgate the keeper wouldn’t let her
 pass for she was short eleven cents. She told
 him, "Just charge it to the White House." "Who
 are you?" asked the incredulous man, chuckling
 and pointing at her. "I’m the President’s
 daughter," she replied sweetly. "Aw," said the
 gatekeeper, "quit you’r kiddin’ an’ come on with
 the ‘leven cents." The chauffeur had to telephone
 the White House to arrange their passage.

Taft’s youngest son, Charlie, who was eleven
 when his father became President, enjoyed and
 played at the White House as much as any
 occupant ever. He well earned his father’s
 admonition, "The old saying was that all work
 and no play makes Jack a dull boy, but I think it is
 equally true that all play and no work makes jack
 a dull boy" (nevertheless, Charlie received high
 marks at school). Archie Butt wrote, "Charlie is
 never quiet for an hour." Soon after the Taft
 family entered the White House, workers on the
 roof of the State, Army, and Naval Building
 (today’s Old Executive Office Building) were
 astonished to see on top of the White House the
 young Charlie leading friends on a game of tag,
 which included sliding down the roof to a balcony
 below. Charlie organized baseball games on the
 South Lawn, drove the White House electric car
 (the press noted that it was his "chief ambition"
 to drive one of the bigger cars), threw model
 airplanes from the roof, operated the
 switchboard, and at least once held
 his own press interview.

Charlie Taft took over the Summer White House
 as he had at Washington. Among adventures,
 he learned the value of a centerboard to sailing.
 After skimming along the bay sideways he had
to be salvaged by the Secret Service.

In addition to his playfulness Charlie was an
 earnest reader. "It is pretty near an axiom that if
 you see Charlie indoors he has a book in his
 hand," noted a reporter. Thinking that his father’s
 inaugural ceremony would be a bore Charlie
 brought along a copy of "Treasure Island." His
 mother proudly noted -- proud that her husband’s
 performance took precedence over
Robert Louis Stevenson -- that the book
"was not opened that day."

After not having seen his father much during the
 election year of 1908, Charlie wrote, "Could you
 please tell me where you are now and where you
 will be until Christmas? I’d like to keep
 a better track of my father."

One day a telephone call came for "Master
 Charlie Taft." While his older sister listened on,
 Charlie’s side of the conversation went,
"Who said so?
"Certainly not!"
"Well, somebody has been giving
 you misinformation."
"An absolute denial."
"Well, if you want to quote me exactly you may
 say that I said the rumour is false;
wholly without foundation."
"All right. Good bye."
Telling his sister it was a reporter on the line, he said, "Couldn’t you tell that from the way I talked
 to him?" But he refused to discuss the purpose
 of the call, saying it was "purely personal." The
 issue made it to the President himself, to whom
 Charlie reluctantly admitted that the reporter
 wanted to confirm if Charlie was switching from
 knickers to "long trousers." The President
 declared, "And if that isn’t a personal matter, I
 should like to know what is." Charlie’s eventual
 conversion to trousers did made the news, the
 front page of The New York Times, in fact:
 "Incidentally, Charley [sic] is wearing
 his first pair of long trousers."

Charlie took to golf like his father, and with
 greater success, it seems. Once, Charlie
 announced, "I beat Uncle Horace 5 this morning.
 Gee, I played rotten." Horace, who was Charlie’s
 headmaster at the Taft School, laughingly
 recalled the incident and wrote to Taft, "Some
 respect must be instilled into the rising
 generation or the nation is done for."
Of Charlie, Horace concluded,
 "His temperament is worth many fortunes."

A Fabulous Wife

The Taft’s held their twenty-fifth wedding
 anniversary celebration at the White House
 which Major Butt described as "the most
 brilliant function ever held in that historic
 mansion." The couple were inundated with gifts
 of the anniversary stone, silver. To a Jewelers
 Association dinner, Taft afterwards made fun of
 the famous event. "You are called ‘jewelers,’" he
 told the group, "But you probably deal also in
 gold, platinum and perhaps in a little silver in
 deference to the old principles of the
 Democratic Party. Now that is where I come in.
 There was a silver wedding at the White House
 last year, and when I retire from that place, if the
 practice of law does not seem profitable, I feel
 amply equipped as a silversmith."

Taft adored his wife. He nurtured and cared for
 her during her terrible illness of 1909, a stroke
 that troubled her over the following two years. In
 May of 1910 she accompanied him to a
 banquet, which she loved to do but had been
 unable to over the previous year. The audience
 was stunned to see her, and applauded uproariously. The President led her by
the hand to the dias and pronounced,
 "The real President of the United States!"

A Fabulous Wife (con't)

Taft once left a note for his First Lady,  "Memorandum for Mrs. Taft -- the Real  President -- from the Nominal President."  Another time, he sent a telegram to her, addressed:

Mistress
The White House
Washington, D.C.

That note closed with, "Am looking forward with  intense pleasure to seeing you and finding you  in fine condition. Loads of love, Willie."

Taft once warned a young man, "As you will find
 out, when you are married, one of the happiest
 conditions is... a difference of view between the
 husband and the wife, which leads to continual
 pleasant conversation and discussion."

On sending money to his wife, Taft wrote her,
 "I inclose herewith a check for $2,000 for my
 monthly payment to you for services rendered.
 I don’t know what you are going to do with it,
 but here it is. This makes, as I count it, $10,000
 that I have handed to you in checks since I
 came into office, and I hope that you are putting
 it where it will do the most good."

Mrs. Taft said it all in her memoirs:
 "Fortunately we are a family that laughs."

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