Los Angeles herald., 1908-03-15
MACON NOW
TROUBLE MAN
TAKES TAFT'S PLACE AS SITTER
ON LIDS
PLACID LAWYER NOW FAvoRlTE
OF PRESIDENT
Cool, Tranquil Attorney Was Raised
on a Farm, but Gave Up Peaceful
Life for One of Action in
the Capital

WASHINGTON, March 14-If a
bag of cracked ice and an opiate are
needed in Cuba or Porto Rico, or Pan
anna or the Philippines, the president
sends either William Howard Taft or
Charles Il. Magoon, physicians, to
islands and small countries suffering
from a glorifieo ego, a diet of red pep
pers. and an equatorial thermometer.
On the rocks, fences and outbuildings
of nations might be painted some such
advertisement as this: "When your
colonies or insular possessions are
stricken with insurrectionists and the
delirium that they are ready for self
government, cable to Taft or Magoon,
care of Theodore Roosevelt Washing
ton. d. c., and get full directions for
a course of home treatment. Emer-
gency calls answered in person.
Occasionally the president assigns
Eihu Root to make q secret and expert
diagnosis while ostensibly the guest of
a neighboring power whose symptoms
are more or less suggestive of an In
creased temperature, accompanied by
desire to walk and argufy in its sleep.
Generally, however, Root practices al
together in his own Office. He Is no
bluff and cheeful country doctor to
ride muddy roads in all kinds of bad
weather. Taft is. He has encom-
passed the whole world several times
ny 1dIlu anu ny WdlSAb Oht NPOii
COON, trained by him and Root, has
now been put the principal burden of
travel and bedside treatment.
Temperamentally Taft and Magoon
resemble each other; but Taft is more
human, buoyant and imaginative than
Magoon, whose mind Is technical and
judicial and whose discourse is a law
yers brief adjusted to the accident of
a private conversation. Physically
they are a pair of peas in the same
green pod, il Il pea can weigh $50
pounds and considerably over
The favorite counselors and agents of
the president are disciplined men whose
energies and impulses are kept within
limits by wisdom and prudence. Root
is skillfully serene and even elegantly
melancholy. although the sunbeams of
a peculiar little smile sometimes lights
up his somber gravity. Taft is cool,
robust, adroit and companionable. Ma
goon is placid, analytic and construc-
tive. A Latin, noisy with emotion,
would wear out his eloquence and
wrath against Magoons ox-eyed tram
quillity. Besides, to make matters
worse, he would require an interpreter.
Magoon doesn't speak Spanish. Scorn
or frenzy halting to be translated Is
neither dignified nor convincing.
An Extraordinary Career
The career of Magoon is said to be
extraordinary. 30 IL is. len years ago
he was practicing law at Lincoln, In
Nebraska, but Mr.. Roosevelt was then
an assistant secretary in the navy de-
partment at a salary of 1915 month,
Root was an attorney for multimil-
lionaires in New York and Taft was a
federal judge in Cincinnati, with no
ambition for anything in politics.
When Magoon came to Washington
to he law officer in the bureau of in
sular affairs at 800 a week he had been
a lawyer for seventeen years From
the spring of 1899 until the summer of
1904 he was an inconspicuous drudge,
locked away from the world while he
studied the law of civil government
under military occupation in its appli-
cation to Cuba, Porto Rico and the
Philippines. Next he was a general
counsel to the Isthmian canal commits
sion, then member Of the commission,
then governor of the Central Zone and
then United States minister to Panama.
Now he is provisional governor of
Cuba.
On his return to Washington 1 inter- |
viewed Gov. Magoon at his hotel, |
where he had a large suite of rooms. |
a military aid, a stenographer and a |
black body servant. He is a modest |
and low-voiced man of giant stature |
and generous girth; Grover Cleveland |