Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-23
BY MARK SULLIVAN.

~ OF american history mat rev
| persons estimate the height of
the drama in which William H. Taft
played a part.
The climax of it may be said to have
been on November 4, 1912, and that Is
less than l8 years ago. The last act,
the closing curtain of it, may be said
to have been reconciliation that oc-
CURED between Taft and Theodore
Roosevelt in 1915, and that is less than
Is years ago.
Yet the excitement that accompanied
that drama, the Importance of it's bear
ing on American history, Is forgotten or
unrealiZed-it was engulfed in the
greater drama of Americas participa-
ton in the World War.
The story of Taft and Roosevelt was
partly tragedy, partly comedy in the
serious sense and at spots high farce
About the whole of 1t one can say,
without exaggeration, that the rela-
tions between two men-beginning with
intimate friendship, ending in strong
hostility-accounted for as much his
tory in America as the relations of any
two men who figure in Gibbons Rome
or Macaulay's England accounted for
in ancient history Because our Amer
lean drama happened in our own times,
before out living eyes, and was record
ed from day to day in penny newspa-
pers, most of us fail to realize how i'm
portant it was, many of us lacking the
imagination to recognize historical
pageantry until 1t is presented to us in
books or on the stage.
Ended In Mutual Affection.
have said that the relation "ended
in strong hostility" But 1t did not.
1t ended in a moving reconciliation and
a restoration of mutual affection which
lasted from the reconciliation in 1915
until .RooSeveltS death in 1919. OF all
the tributes evoked by Roosevelt's
death, and more elevated than formal
tributes, the spontaneous expressions of
deep, personal Sorrow-none was more
appealing than Taft's. Strong hos
tility" is an accurate characterization of
the phase that lasted about two years,
from early 1912 until about 1914. but
it was a hostility that arose outside the
two men, hostility inherent in the po-
litical situation and unacceptable from
the roles they f1lled as leaders and
symbols of two powerfully antagonistic
factions Of the Republican party.
The political feud was deadly one.
Literally deadly, for either the Repub-
lican party under Taft had to die or
the Progressive one under Roosevelt
husband did. 1t was the knowledge of
the contending political factions that it
.
that inevitably made Taft and Roosevelt
antagonists; they were the respective
heads of the factions and could not
adequately live up to their obligations
to their followers without being an
tagonists to each other. 1t is very doubt
full if Roosevelt ever really hated" Taft,
and as for Taft it is certain that his
nature would not allow him to hate"
anybody.
Should Have Known Roosevelt.
1t was a day. moreover when politics
was more robust-and more robustious
than now. Persons who think there
is anything dramatic in the present
split Of the Republicans in the Senate,
should have known Roosevelt and his
day, his fights-oh, his fights! With
the Senate, with Congress altogether,
with Hartman with Standard OIL, with
Pulitzer, with Tillman. with Bailey,
with Taft. When Roosevelt fought, he
fought! To charge an opponent with
uttering a willful and deliberate false
hood" was one of the milder of Roose-
velt's epithets-and sometimes he got
as good as he gave, and a little more.
When Bailey of Texas had occasion to
question Roosevelt's veracity, Bailey
used no such tame euphemiSm as
'falSehood' -Bailey said, unqualified,
deliberate and malicious liar" and
thrice repeated it.
There were, as the movies might put
it-there were politics in them thar
days, and Taft and Roosevelt, when
their respective followers fell into rival
camps, remained, personally-especially
Enthusiastically above the current level
of political controversy as then prac-
ticed..
Taft Roosevelt Fight Determined Much.
The relation between Taft and Roose-
welt directly determined the Presidency
for IL years. Their friendship deter
mined that Taft should be maze PreSi-
dent in 1909, their hostility that Wilson
should become President in 1912.
BY bringing about the election of
Wilson the quarrel between Taft and
Roosevelt determined much more-de-
termined the time and the manner of
our participation in the Great War;
determined, indeed, wheather we should
enter the war or not, and If so on
which side, for the history of the
United States with respect to the Great
War was largely the history of the mind
OF woodrow Wilson.
The qurrel between Taft and Roose-
velt-in its less momentous moments
threw the Republican party out of
power and brought it so near to death
only two states-Vermont and Utah
1t gave the Democrats the longest ten
ure of Office they had had since the
Civil War and brought into existence
the" most aggressive and most speedily
formidable third party America has
ever had
Accounted for Political History.
In short, the human relations be-
tween William II Taft and Theodore
Roosevelt accounted for most of the
political history of America during the
epochal period. 10000. The upheavalS
1t wrought in the channels of Amer
lean politics gave such modification of
direction to the currents of our history
as imagination can only speculate
about
To those who were drawn into the
emotional whirlwind it engendered-
and practically every American vast
seemed national drama of epic dimen-
sions. Literally. no American dreamed
of greater drama that was destined
to interrupt it, and to turn Americas
mind to more tragic events. The i'm
portance of the Taft Roosevelt era and
| its events lived up, on the whole, to
the tendency of that day to see it as
something titanic, and justified the
setting OF Homeric epic in which 1t
was recited at the time by Americas
contemporary equivalent for any classic
writer Of light verse, namely, r. p. A.,
Of the New York World.
T. r. 10 w. HIT.
Or ever the knightly fight was on,
The skirmish of smear and snudge,
was king in Washington
And you were q circuit judge.
saw, I took, I made you great,