William Howard Taft

William H. Taft

Small archive comprised of 1pp TLS signed by 27th U.S. President William H. Taft (1857-1930) as"Wm. H. Taft" at center; as well as a 10-page manuscript annotated by Taft and containing 178 words in his hand.

Typed letter signed by Taft on Stratford Parchment 1913 cream stationery paper with "William H. Taft, New Haven, Conn" letterhead. In very good to near fine condition, with expected paper folds and additional minor creases to bottom third of page. Sheet measuring 7.375" x 10".

Pastor and magazine editor John Wesley Hill (1863-1936) turned over his hand-written draft of Taft's biographical entry for the American Encyclopedia of National Biography to the former president on 10 mint-green Woodbury Bond watermarked sheets. Taft corrected 7 of these sheets, marking them with almost 200 words in his hand. (Itemization: On page 1, 34 words; on page 2, 15 words scattered throughout; on page 3, 44 words in left margin; on page 4, 28 words concentrated at bottom; on page 5, 36 words at top; on page 6, 15 words; no annotations on pages 7-9; and 6 words including letters and numbers on page 10.) Some of the pages incorporate printed newspaper columns. Hill has also heavily marked the manuscript with grammatical and factual changes. The perforated left edge of the pages suggest that they were probably torn out of a notebook. There are expected paper folds. General edge wear including some quite brittle. Minor repairs throughout, each page measuring on average 8.5" x 10.5".

John Wesley Hill and William H. Taft were long-time friends and colleagues. Both 25th U.S. President William McKinley and 26th U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt relied on Hill's counsel as a Methodist preacher, and he served as a sort of religious advisor to Taft on his Western presidential campaign. Hill and Taft were co-editors of The Peace Forum, a monthly magazine established in 1910. The two were true contemporaries, both born in mid-nineteenth-century Ohio. Hill was the pastor at the Metropolitan Temple in New York City when the manuscript was reviewed in 1913.

As Hill's biographical entry relates, William H. Taft had formidable experience in both the law and politics. By the early twentieth century, Taft had served in roles as diverse as the 6th Solicitor Generalship of the United States, and the provisional governorship of the Philippines and Cuba. Taft served as 42nd Secretary of War under 26th U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt (1858-1919) between 1904 and 1908. International issues that fell under Taft’s purview included the first stages of construction of the Panama Canal; administration of the former Spanish colonies of Cuba and the Philippines; and orchestrating a cessation of the Russo-Japanese War. Taft’s tenure as Secretary of War was largely an intermediary step before the 1908 presidential election. As Teddy Roosevelt’s ideological and practical successor, Taft was elected in 1908.

This letter dates from just after Taft's return to his alma mater Yale University in the spring of 1913 to serve as the Kent Professor of Law and Legal History; Taft taught courses, delivered paid lectures, and published articles and books from here for the next eight years.

Provenance: from the collection of Malcolm Forbes