Omaha daily bee., 1909-03-04

HE HAS TRAVELLED MORE THAN
5000 MILES.
be has been travelling out of Washington
Tor the government. and 30 laEge has
been his territory that he has frequently
failed to spend Sunday at home for as
much as six months at a time. He has
been official trouble shooter for the Roose-
welt administration Let a stiff Joint
develop In the entente cordiale between
Madagascar and the United States, Bill is
sent over on the next boat to talk II into
good working order again. Let there be
a strong smoke suggestive of a hot box
In the Philippines; there never was such
4 man for cooling hot boxes as Bill. In
his official capacity as salve singer and
wheel greaser for the administration he
has visited Japan, China, the Philippines,
Russia, Rome. Cuba, Porto Rico and the
Panama canal. He has Travelled over $1,000
miles and this in spite of the fact that a
Pullman berth fits him as snugly as a
shoe box would fit a bull calf and that
only one steamer berth in nine is built to
take all of him In at one time. Yet he has
cheerfully wedEed himself into impossible
quarters for his country's sake and has
endured the torments of travelling in coun-
tries built for men nine sizes smaller with
out n complaint. TOT lIis diOne ne ue-
serves the presidency.
Mr.. Taft will be the twenty-seventh pres
Ident Of the United States. He will be the
fifth president to be elected from Ohio and
the sixth president produced In that state.
Mr.. Taft is the fifth president to wear
a mustache and is the seventh president
who has found time TO use a middle name
in his busy career. He wears a larger chair
than any other executive and his collar has
been excelled in circumference only by that
OF the late Grover Cleveland. His majority
when elected was next to the largest ever
received by a presidnt. II lie the third mem
Der of the Bill club to land the job.
BY being elected Mr.. Taft also becomes
one OF the few men who-according to the
: Yale beliet-have honored Yale instead OF
being honored by II. His election last fall
dispelled the stygian gloom resulting from
two defeats in one year by Harvard. In
displaclnE a Harvard man in the white
House Yale is not recompensed for the
late foot ball defeat. but is reason
ably comforted. Moreover, Mr.. Taft
Is the first man to get there ELI, presi-
denttally speaking, while Harvard has had
thrse-that is counting Roosevelt as only
one man.
1t is always a pleasure to chronicle the
success of the town fat boy, who deserves
all that can come TO him later In life be-
cause Of the nicknames which he endures
in his youth. Tart was one OF these. His
pictorial record discloses him at the age
Of IL as a slim young thing in long trousers.
Six years later, he weighed 225 pounds
What happened, in the interim staggers the
Imagination. The fact remains that at the
age OF u when he landed at Yale he was
tho biggest freshman who had ever entered
college. The students gazed at him with
awe and admiration, for he was large al
over, not globulsr. They paced off his
width, ran lines around his calves, esti,
mated his height by triansulation and i'm
mediatsly made him leader of the fresh.
man squad in the class rush. All the mex
day. the saddened sophomores were busy
digging their unfortunate brethren out o.
Taft's foot tracks. Thus the Taft steam
roller had its humble beginnings.
When Taft left Yale four years later
he was stll the largest student who ha,
been enrolled in college. In a quiet stead!
way he has been merging and annexinl
the outlying provinces OF space ever sire
He now weighs about 325 pounds and wear
trousers whose legs might do as temporar.
tunnels for the Lusitania- He is OF tn
: consolidated mogui type and is built TO ii
q canal boat. still he Is not fat. He i
merely expansive. He Is like Chicago
he covers a lot of ground but he is no
[ unduly swelled in any one part. He I
! built 10 fit his body IN temperament
sympathies and understanding, I'm every
thing in fact but voice. He has a thirty