The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1908-04-28
FRANK 3. HOWE, Editor and Publisher
Taft the Man.

The Banner yesterday printed few
extracts from an article In the current
number Of the American Magazine by
William Allen White on Secretary
Taft. Following are few more ex-
tracts from the same article:
But the most important thing that
came into the life of Solicitor General
Taft In Washington was not his legal
victories. They were Incidents of the
days work. He was 33 years old and
as they say, young for his age"
Youth was still afire In him and the
interstices Of his mind were waxen.
So when in knocking about Washing
ton young Taft, living in the real
world Of ideals and scorning the dream
world Of material things, met q short,
stocky. bull-necked, high souled young
man with the Harvard pickle nearly
washed off his mind-a civil service
commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt by
name, as full OF energy as a newly
wound clock-the stars of two des-
TIMES hitched up notch in their or.
bits and prepared for long parallel
journey. Never were men who were
basicly one so entirely antipodal In
their expression of the same ideals.
Externally Taft is everything t..at
Roosevelt is not. Taft begins each
day by weary, painful, perfunctory.
half hour of gymnastic gyrations-- "a
kind and canned exercise-which, hav.
ing been opened and devoured, finishes
his physical duty for the day. Roose-
welt takes his exercise in the open.
with the joy of satyr In it. Roose-
velts mental processes are quick, in
tuitive and sure. Until he has made
up his mind he Is most open-minded
person. Taft works it out. He is
never too sure to receive new evil
dence. Taft grapples proposition,
wrestles with it without resting and
without fatigue until 1t Is settled or
solved. His joy is found at the end
Of the ad ROoseve:t's 10y Is found
in many as. He wearirs =: mon
otony, and krcns divers interests u,
his mind, many things to employ him
under the head of unfinished business.
II Providence Is slow in sending wars
and rumors of wars--what no, for the
nature fakirs! Let us be up and do
ing.
Roosevelt has a marvellous moral
sense; he has detectives nose for
| finding iniquity in measures. Taft
has prodigious capacity for hard
consecutive work and an instinct for
evidence founded on a broad, chart
table affection for men, /, whom he
knows as a hunter knows his dogs
and Taft finds the right of things, as
Roosevelt finds 1t. but by different
path. Taft enjoys his meals. Roose
welt, absorbed in work or play, would
eat hay and not know 1t. With Roose
welt culture is like bear-hunting, trust
| fighting muck raking or fence pump
ing, a rampant, gorgeous reaction up
on his Unsuitable soul. With Taft cul
ture Is sweet, indefnable mental
and moral digestant tincture that col.
ors his souls eyes SO that he may see
a delightful world; or, to change the
figure, 1t is an easy garment, a sort OF
drapery Of his spiritual couch, which
he wraps about him and lies down to
pleasant dreams" He has read wide
ly-though not SO widely as Roosevelt
probably. To find that Taft has read
a certain book pleases but does not
amaze one. Yet the two men are fun
damentally of the same stuff, Of the
same mind and of the same heart, and
when in Washington In those early
days OF the nineties Taft and R0ose'
welt loafed together and invited their
souls, they established one Of those
strong friendships that may be estab
lished only by men whose exteriors
form such antipathetical sutures that
they unite by spiritual affinity. Both
of them scorned money. Neither car
ed for the thing known as ociety
Each knew the vanity of the thing cal
ed power, and with all their hearts
they despised the selfish, sordid. gree
dy, money-making tendency OF the
times. Each was the complement Of
the other. Taft gave Roosevelt poise
Roosevelt fired the soul of Taft. Nc
other friendship in our modern politics
has meant more to the American PEG
pie than has this youthful attachment
Of William Taft and Theodore Roose
welt, for 1t has made two most impOr
tant and devoted public servants wis
err, kindlier, more useful men.
1t is curious how men so similar
at heart can affect other men so diff
ferently. Whenever Commissioner
Roosevelt of the Civil Service came
into President Harrison's room on of
fetal business, the precise, punctil
ious little president would begin drum
ming on the table nervOusly and show
In a number Of ways his impatient ir
ritation at the length of the interview
however short 1t might be. Yet sc
greatly did he admire Solicitor Taft
who believed in the same things that
Roosevelt believed in, and was work
ing toward exactly the same end, that
President Harrison promoted Solicitor
Taft to a judgeship In the United
States Circuit court--an honor rarely
conferred upon so young a man and a
distinction which marked his as a
man among ten thousand at the Amer
lean bar. President Harrison would
not have promoted Roosevelt to any
thing, except, perhaps minister to the
moon. For conduct Is the product OF
emotions, and emotions are the result
OF temperament, and in most human
domiciles reason is a second child
with her nose out of joint: consequent
lily in the heart of Benjamin Harrison