The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-05-15
HOW BILL TAFT
COVERS GROUND
Here, There and Everywhere Is
the Distinguished Man
of Travel.
(Man Special to the Advertiser.)

WASHINGTON, D. c., April 80
! "Bilf' Taft, which is the campaign
name for Honorable William Howard
Taft, Secretary of War. can now prob.
ably qualify as the greatest official
traveller on this or any other hemis-
phere. He comes to and departs from
his departmental office with a grip sack
in hand. Some of the Washington
newspapers, of late, have been trying
10 be funny by describing the Secretary
on his occasional arrivals in Washing
ton as a distinguished visitor within
our gates
For about year and a half the
Secretary certainly has been on the
go. Perhaps he has been at his desk
four months during that period. The
War Departments disbursing officer
accordingly has had sorry time of it
in securing the Secretary's signature
on the payroll for the $1,000 monthly
stipend which the law designates shall
be his as a member of the cabinet. The
President first ordered him off on in
spection trips TO Panama. Porto Rico
and Cuba, and to the Philippines, by
a long and devious route. These trips
were taken, the while the country and
even the world looked on in admira-
ton. The people began c1amoring for
a chance to see him. Often their de-
sires We're voiced in the presence of
the President, in which instances the
press dispatches generally announce 4
that the Secretary accepted their invi-
tations before the visiting delegations
departed the White House.
Under such circumstances Secretary
Taft, of course, could not be continu-
ously at the War Department. He has
always FASTENED back there between
trips, tackled the mountain Of papers
upon his broad desk against the mo-
ment when he must hasten away again
to augment the total of his annual
travels
He was easily a traveller of dis
tinguished reputation before the year
1907 was ushered in. He had crossed
the Pacific several times in the Philip
pine service and. in campaign times,
had gone considerably up and down the
country. Large plans for his 1907
itinerary were forming by January,
during which month he made a trip
into the South. Early in February,
after his return from a
journey to New York to address a Yale
alumni dinner. it was first announced
that he contemplated a trip to Panama
in the spring and world voyage to
the Philippines in the autumn. He
made a week end trip to that Yale dim
ner and was back in Washington the
following Monday. Quite a week later
he was over at New Haven to attend
a meeting of the Yale corporation. A
week after his return from Connecticut
he was off for a boat sail down the
Potomac with a few Congressman to
inspect Notifications and witness target
practise, and got back to his desk on
a Friday.
These items are mentioned TO show
how the travel habit grew upon the
Honorable Secretary. During March
of 1907, he continued his out Of town
activities almost weekly. He was in
New York March 10 of a Sunday to
attend a meeting of the Martyrs Monu
ment Association: in New York again
the following Saturday to confer with
landscape artists about identifying the
American shore of the river near
Niagara Falls and then on again to
New Haven to attend another meeting
of the Yale corporation.
That brought him up close to March
80. The President had ordered the
Mayfiower to Charleston, s. c., to be
in waiting for the Secretary and his
party. Before the Secretary had left
Washington in a private car his itin-
erary in and out of the West Indies
for a months trip was announced, and
also plans for a long trip into the
West soon after he could set foot again
on mainland soil. He was back in
Washington after almost one month S
absence, during which he travelled 584S
miles. The Western trip at first was
announced to include speeches at Iowa
and Minnesota universities, but, like
nearly all the other speaking trips the
Secretary has made since then, this
trip grew greatly in speaking magnt-
tude
In the meantime, however, he made
trip into the Middle West, the week
following his arrival from the West
Indies, to address the Dayton, Ohio Y.
NJ. c. A. of a Sunday; and the Com
mercial Business Mems Clubs of Gin
cinnati of a Monday, 50 that he
reached Washington again the fol-
lowing Wednesday.
It was repeatedly asserted that these
trips were not of political character.
Somehow the public was catching
on" that the Secretary Of War was a
genial speaker. ready TO deliver public
addresses. Invitations began to pour
in upon him at a rate that would have
staggered even such willing vacation
speaker as Vice President Fairbanks.
They seemed to come from territory
that was strategically important.
By early May it became apparent
that the Secretary would have to