The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1910-02-16
A Virginan Page for Each Member of the Family
THE PRESIDENTS SPEECHES
: BY FREDERIC J. uAsKIS. /.

The forthcoming Chicago trip of
President TAFT will add to his fame
as the most extensive speeehmakc r
who ever sat IN the presidential cilair.
Already three volumes OF principal
speeches and addresses have been
published, and fourth viii soon APP
pear But they foran--eHiy very
email percentage OF the speeches he
mas delivered since becoming the head
OF the Philippine government. When
1t is stated that he delivered All
speeches IN the last presidential CAM
paign. and 275 on his trip last fall,
1t Will be seen that Mr.. Taft Is really
great speechmaker With three
years in the White House before him,
ana prospect of four years more
beyond that. 1T is estimated that IL he
continues 10 deliver Speeches and adj
dresses at the same rate 1t will even
tually require come thirty-odd
yalumes 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, Mr.. Wendell w Misehler,
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 of 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 Mischief, and in a
minute the secretary Is reading to him
what he wants to know. Anyone who
has practiced stenography knows how
hard Ii 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 passing of months.
AS he gets time from the pressing
duties of an assistant secretary TO
the president, Mischler has his notes
transcribed and files the typewriter,
copies away. When enough accumu-
lates 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 speeohmakfng. These
volumes contain an average OF 5Oe
letter-size pages each, and as per-
haps half of the pages are written
/ singie-space there probably Is ar
average of 400 words per page. This
would make some $500 pages of
I typewrttten matter N the set Of
hooks--nearly 2 100000 words. The
first volume begins with speeches de
( livered at Manila. and the succeeding
zones crrt bruce -ttrat~haee followed
All of these speeches win not be
published at an early date, but when
, the works of William II. TAFT are eol-
( Iected and published in years TO come
/ they probably will appear in fuh, The
works Of six er eight other Presidents
/ n4 n,fh
| In the case of Washington they en-
/ braced more letters than speeches, as
I speech making was not SO popular as
| IL is to-day. Up TO the time of Theo-
dore Roosevelt the record as a maker
of presidential literature, was held by
! Thomas jefferson. with twenty vol
umes But even Jeffersons efforts
have been made to appear brief be-
side the printed works Of Mr. Roose-
4teit--and he is not yet through. Ne
other President has talked upon OF
written about such wide variety OF
! subjects as Mr.. Roosevelt While Mr.
Taft may exceed the Roosevelt re-
cord. 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 pie
turessueness of presentation.
The speeches delivered ny AIR. TAFT
have been delivered before all sorts of
audiences and at all conceivable times,
AL high noon and at midnight. in the
banquet hall and from the rear plat
form of a train at water tank stop,
before those who see and To those
( who are bllnd--even to the deaf ON
his last trip he addressed school foE
the deaf at Jackson. Miss. The pub
lie seemed to comprehend every WORD
the President spoke, although they
looked at him more than at the signs
of the interpreter.
Mckinley was not go much man
of letters as many of the other Prest-
dents His published speeches Goa
stitute about his only effort in the
field of literature, Few Presidents
have had more written about them
! however, than Mckinley. His tragic
death resulted in veritable food OF
/ 4H-nHeparea biegraP hies, most of them
published by the time his body was
laid in the tomb at Canton. They
were gotten out merely to catch the
subscription book trade and with little
view to their permanent value.
Grover Cleveland paid little atten-
ton to letters until after his second
term as President, but from the end
| of his career in the White House tc