Omaha daily bee., 1910-02-16

Thu forthcoming Chicago trip Of Presi-
dent Taft will add to his fame as the most
extensive speechmaker who ever sat in
the presidential chair. Already three vol
umes OF principal speeches and addresses
have been published and a fourth will soon
appear. But they form only a very small
percentage OF the speeches he has deliv-
cred since becoming the head OF the Philip
pine government. When It Is stated that
he delivered AZ speeches in the last presl-
dental campaign and 2b on his trip last
fall II will be seen that Mr.. Taft is really
a great speechmaker. with three years
in the White House before him and a
prospect of four years more beyond that,
1t is estimated that IL he continues to de-
liver speeches and addresses at the same
rate it win eventually require some thirty
odd volumes to contain. them.
Already there are sixteen volumes OF
Taft speeches preserved at the White
House office building. During all his
speechmaking Mr.. Taft has had with him
one Of his assistant secretaries, MI. Wen
dell W. Mischief, who is a 'pothook'' artist
Of the master class. He has caught every
speech just as It came from the presi-
Dental lips. At the end 81 a trip he takes
out the pages Of his notebook and pastes
them In a great scrap book in the order
Of their delivery. When Mr.. Taft wants
to know exactly what he said at any way
station on his trip he simply calls Misoh-
Ter and In a minute the secretary Is read
ing to him what he wants to know. Any
one who has practiced stenography knows
how hard it is to read notes after they
become cold" but Mischler's word signs
and phrasings seem to be as plain to him
as the printed words, even after the pass
ing of months.
AS he gets time from the pressing duties
Of an assistant secretary to the president,
Mischief has his notes Transcribed and
files the typewriter copies away. When
enough ~accumulates he sends them to the
printer and has them bound In this way
he has made up the sixteen volumes which
constitute the record of six years OF
speechmaking. These volumes contain an
average of 400 letter-size pages each, and
as perhaps half Of the pages are written
! single space there probably is an average
of 100 words per page. This would make
some 6,4OO pages OF typewriter matter in
the set Of b~ooks-nearly 1000, 900 words. The
first volume begins with speeches delivered
at Manila and the succeeding ones en-
brace all that have followed.
All OF these speeches will not be pub
lished at an early date, but when the
works Of William H.. Taft are collected
and published in years to come they prob
ably will appear in full. The works of
six or eight other presidents nave been
collected and published. In the case OF
Washington they embraced more letters
than speeches, as speech-making was not
so popular as it is today. Up to the time
Of Theodore Roosevelt the record as a
maker of presidential literature was held
by Thomas Jefferson, with twenty vol
umes. But even Jefferson's efforts have
been mad to appear brief beside the
printed works of Mr.. Roosevelt-and he
is not yet through. No other president
has talked upon or written about such
a wide variety Of subjects as Mr.. Roose-
welt. While Mr.. Taft may exceed the
Roosevelt record, SO far as the volume OF
his speech-making is concerned, he can
never hope to rival his predecessor In the
range OF subjects or the picturesqueness
OF presentation.
The speeches delivered by Mr.. Taft have
been delivered before ali sorts OF audi
ences and at all conceivable times. Al
high noon and at midnight, in the banquet
nall and from the rear platform of a train
at a water tank stop, before those who
see and to those who are bllnd-even to
the deaf, On his last trip he addressed
a school for the deaf at Jackson Miss
The pupils seemed to comprehend every
word the president spoke, although they
looked at him more than at the signs OF
the interpreter.
In the case Of many of the earlier presi.
dents all of their letters which could be
found were embraced in their published
works. For instance, in the case of Wash.
ington, one finds in his published works
a letter to his stepson who was ATTENDING
school at Annapolis. The boy had writ
ten him asking to whom he should look
for pin money. The frugal old patriot re-
piled that he had been supplied with &C
and that with such a liberal supply OF
spending money such a question ought
not agitate his mind. 1t manifestly would
be impossible ever to publish all the letters
OF a modern president, even the ones die
tated by himself. The White House mail
ranges anywhere from 500 to 1900 letters
a day, and everyone is answered. directly