The morning journal-courier., 1908-07-16

more dlsorderly But there was an- other side to his temperament, and 1 have read very few incidents in the car- ger of any public man which revealed to me, as l thought, such horn mix ture of that suaVe tact as well as ne3- essary severity which marks out the real ruler of men, as this episode In the career of Taft as governor of the Philippines, This twenty stone weight giant actually learned the Spanish
 quadrile. with the result that when the dance started he was able to join
 In, and to whirl around the room
 with the best of the Spanish boys and the prettiest of the Spanish girls, One can in fancy picture this splendid, genial, smiling giant, at once so terri
 ble and so sweet, throwing off the serious aspect of the ruler and the orator after the political meeting was over and joining heartily with the Spanlards in that dance which is the culminatlon and the epilogue of even
 the most momentous concerns There
 was one other episode connected with
 this epoch in Tafts career which has also immensely impressed me, He found, amid many other difficulties in
 the newly conquered isles, one that seemed more hopeless than any other.
 Ask any politician what 1t is to deal with a political question which has q religious or Il semi-rellglous aspect, and he will shudder at the memory or the prospect. And in the Philippines there was such q difficulty and in most aggravated form The church had own- cd immense tracts of land, and the church had consisted almost entirely of Spanish friars. The land was wanted first, and, secondly, there was no body of spanlards in the islands who sym bollzed to the emancpated natives In so unpopular a form the old Spanish oppression as the frlars. But the church could not be despoiled under an orderly government. and the problem Taft had to resolve was to restore It's possessions to tho church on the one hand and, on the other, to reconcile the Filiplnos 10 some other representatives of the priesthood than the frlars. Taft took that thorny job In hand went to Rome, saw Pope leo--as great di- plomat as hlmself-and, In short, to the surprise of everyone and especially of Athose who had tried in their day to set
 tie religious controversy, managed to get tho problem placed on basis sat isfactory both to tho church and to the Filipinos, The church got back It's lands; the Fillplnos got an entirely new race of priests, free from the traditions and the unpopularlty of the old regime. This was the turning point in the ca
 reer of Taft: from that time forward he became an ambassador nt large Co his country. There was a revolution In Cuba--to Cuba he was sent, and the revolution was disposed of California became restive under the vast immigra- ton of Japan. and Japanese swords men and yellow journals began to swagger a bit---Taft was sent to Japan, land now the business is no longer heard of. It was desirable to make things between America and the czar pleasant once more. after the very openly avow- | ed friendship of America for Japan in
 the last war Taft was sent to St. Pet crsburg, and there was turned on the
 somber prison and grim officinls among
 whom the poor little czar passes his | life, the broad, beaming smile of thIs
 man from that strange, new, tradition
 less New World, where a man can be
 lawyer one day in provincial town and the next month be consorting with | powers and potentates. In courts oi 1 monarchs and not courts of Inv, with
 the same easy self-possesslon as though he had been born and trained in the neiglborhood of ancient thrones. In l Panama men have rotted by tho thou
 sands and millions have been sunk In
 mud and ocean-great reputaJons have
 been destroyed; governments have gone
 down; nightly nation even ns rich
 as France have staggered on the brink
 of national bankruptcy In the gigantic
 task of uniting the Atlantic and Pacific
 oceans through tho sthmus of Panama Taft was sent there and apparently l