Evening star., 1954-04-12
BY Mary McGrory

THE FIRST book-length appraisal
i Of Robert Alphonso Taft, profess
sional politician, is appropriately by
professional political writer who COM
bines q sympathetic appreciation of the
man with an objective estimate of his
record.
William s. White, New York Times
Washington correspondent, predicateS
the Senator's whole remarkable and
remarkably brief career Che was, after
all, only IA years in the Senate) on a
devotion to the principles of orthodox
Republicanism. 1t was there that he
made his greatest contribution and
there that he left the greatest gap.
In Mr.. Whites measure, the Sena-
tor from Ohio emerges as a courageous,
fortnight. generous but basically in
transigent man. OF genuine and
complete religious tolerance. he did not
suffer fools gladly, as his abrupt.
4 That's silly" often testified. He was
a born Senator. AS a Republican, he
could put party above personal hopes,
and did so in his finest hour. The
tragic flaw in his political character,
according to Mr.. White, was that he,
a son of wealth and privilege, fancied
he understood the common people per
fectly WELL" when in fact he did not,
and they repeatedly demonstrated that
they did not always share his passion
for facts, issues and orthodoxy.
On the personal side, in 1.-THE Taft
Story" (Harper & Brothers) the most
Illuminating single comment is per-
hot ~ ~ xxy1An coid
of him, "He didn't like anybody to do
anything he could do hisself."
His servant, Mack. makes an observa-
ton of another kind which showed the
weakness Of Taft as a political man.
Mack reports that sometimes the Sena-
tor came down to breakfast, wrote in
his little book, made no reply to Mack's
greeting and finally looked up to say
Why good morning, Mack like he
is surprised to see me-"
And Mr.. White himself gives as good
a characterization as any when he
remarks that she was a man who never
could really smile except when he
really wanted to-"
That failure to accommodate, that
unwillingness to compromise. gave Mr..
Taft his greatest strength in his party.
But these characteristics also con-
tributed to the crushing defeat of his
lifelong hopes for the White House.
Senator Taft's obiiviousness to the
little things of political life, his angu-
larity, the candor that in, any other
politician would have been suicidal,
only endeared him the more to the
hard-core Republicans. To them he
was literally "the greatest man in the
United States But these qualities
made him an easy prey to the more
perceiving and flexible group which
opposed him his entire political life
"the Dewey people"
When in 1852 at the G. o. P. con-
vention in Chicago he was confronted
with the moral issue Of the stolen"
Texas delegates, his attitude was, says
Mr. White, mot stunned, but simply
and wholly uncomprehending."
But it was not merely the niggling
nicetieS that blocked his path to the
White House although he commanded
the personal and theological loyaltiee
of millions of orthodox Republicans.
His bitterness and his irresponsibility
following the Republican defeat Cf 1948,
display of cynical partisanship that
enabled him to encourage airily the
early Red-hunting Mccarthy these
were unworthy of the doughty captain
of the famed 8Oth Congress.
The memory of those "sad. worst
years" counted against him in 1852,
says Mr.. White. So did his habit of
surrounding himself with lieutenants
x11O 1oor al inf 1c
AS for the vaunted integrity-to
which Mr.. White says Senator Taft
was born-what befell it then? The
author does not attempt to explain or
justify. It was simply that Taft. who
could bear defeat gallantly for himself,
could not take it for the Republican
Party, which he felt had been led up
the garden path by the me-too Dewey
crowd.
When it comes to the Senator's
tangled views on foreign policy, Mr..
White simply spreads the record out
in all it's contradictions. It was, he
AYERS, record of Inconsistency al
most to the point of inconceivability"
And it was an inconsistency based on
uncongeniality. The Senator, son of
WIG MI0WCot, WlollCO 1OLC1SI PlOD-
lens would go away. In the end he
took the position that air and sea
power would protect us best-Europe
would have to take care of herself as
best she could-and sought shelter in
the 18th-century concept of wars
fought by mercenaries. He recoiled,
Mr.. White says. from the idea Of
American young men facing death in
a muddy trench-in Europe, anyway
and could never see how for them to do
so would in any way contribute to the
preservation of American liberty.
And this aspect. at least, Of his
strangely mixed views was part and
parcel of paternalism that was never
fully understood by those who crowded
closest to him in his political life. 1t
was a benevolence, Mr.. White con-
tends, that he constantly radiated on
the young. It spanked his concern for
such un-Taftian measures as public
housing and Federal aid to education.