History Quickies #1: The Dueling Personalities of Roosevelt and Taft
How the constrasting personalities of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft shaped their respective legacies
My latest history adventure has been an immersion into late 19th and early 20th century America, particularly the presidencies of William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson. This is an understudied period of American history, oft neglected in favor of a focus on the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the post-war era.
The journey has inevitably brought me to the political friendship-turned-rivarly of Roosevelt and Taft. The nature of this rivalry will be explored in other posts; here, I want to simply examine the dueling personalities of the two presidents, and how these personalities led to widely differing historical legacies.
In The Bully Pulpit, Doris Kearns Goodwin writes:
“Will [Taft] had the stronger physical endowment but the weaker self-control; Teedie [Roosevelt’s childhood nickname] the weaker body but the greater strength of will. The enormously powerful Will abused his physical gift; the smaller Teedie, a heroic compensator, toughened and transformed his body. Will tended to stay indoors; Teedie tested himself outdoors, against nature. Taft was easygoing and even-tempered; Roosevelt perpetually in motion, as if to keep self-inquiry at bay.”
Goodwin is more charitable to “Will” than many historians. Taft, perhaps partially due to his weight, is often described as a lazy, inept, even oafish historical character. While Goodwin acknowledges that Taft was a reluctant politician, prone to bouts of indecision and inaction, she notes that most of his contemporaries—including Roosevelt—viewed him as a man of incredible intellect and character. If historians have viewed Taft as “lazy”, “inept”, or “oafish”, contemporaries used words like “methodical”, “judicial”, and “honest”. It was not until his presidency that Taft’s qualities, so often cited as a benefit for most of his career, began to be portrayed in a far more negative light.
Taft perhaps suffered (and continues to suffer) from the fact that his personality was so often compared to that of Theodore Roosevelt, a once in a generation political force. Roosevelt’s favorable historical legacy can be attributed at least partially to the cult of personality that surrounded him; he was an expert manipulator of the media, an electric public speaker, and a man who possessed such a bredth of knowledge and diversity of interests that he was often called “the most interesting man in the America”. He was the United States’ first celebrity president, with a career so impressive and varied that his time in the White House could easily be missed on a resume. He was, at any one time: the youngest assemblyman in New York state history, a cattle rancher, a prolific author, a civil service commissioner, a police commissioner, an amateur ornithologist, a historian, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a contributing journalist to a number of magazines, a colonel and war hero, a South American explorer (with a river named after him, to boot), a leading conservationaist, and vice president. Virtually all of those who came in contact with Roosevelt either lovingly or loathingly came away with at least one common impression: his energy, productivtiy, and tenacity seemed to know no bounds.
Not once was Taft argued to be “the most interesting man in America”. Yet Taft’s career could only seem unremarkable when positioned next to “Teedie’s”. After an impressively successful law career, in which he rapidly ascended through the judicial ranks of Ohio, Taft went on to become the Governor of the Philippines, Secretary of War, President of the United States, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In other words, he ascended to the pinnacle of two of the United States’ three branches of government, and remains the only American to ever serve as both president and a Supreme Court justice, never mind chief justice. When put into perspective, any assertion that Taft was “inept” or “lazy” becomes laughable.
Yet it must be admitted that Taft’s personality and demeanor did not do his historical legacy any favors. As subtly productive and tenacious as Taft may have been, one thing he was not was energetic. Even the judge’s most glowing admirers could not help but mention his slow, methodical approach to any and all questions. He was indeed judicial, seemingly allergic to decisive (or, to put it another way, rash) decisions, constantly skeptical of falling prey to sudden and often temporary swings in public opinion. If Roosevelt was all action, Taft was all thought; while a conversation with Taft could feel like being wrapped in a warm embrace, one with Roosevelt was akin being shocked with a defibrillator.
As will be explored in later posts, such differences were not just superficial. Roosevelt’s infectious personality and relentless drive not only made him more popular, but allowed him to accomplish more while Commander-in-Chief. They helped him both rally the American public to his cause and channel the public’s demands into actual legislation. They made him—and thus the United States—a force to be reckoned with on the world stage, both in terms of diplomatic influence and military might. On the other hand, Taft’s benign disposition and inoffensive personality may have made him a superb judge, but were insufficient for the makings of an effective president. Despite a few oft-neglected accomplishments, his one term was defined by Republican infighting and executive stagnation, which was at least partially caused by his own inability to lead his party.