William Howard Taft (1857 – 1930)
27th President of the United States (19091913) and 10th Chief Justice of the United States (19211930).
Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that to-day is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity.
I have come to the conclusion that the major part of the work of a President is to increase the gate receipts of expositions and fairs and bring tourists to town.
The diplomacy of the present administration has sought to respond to modern ideas of commercial intercourse. This policy has been characterized as substituting dollars for bullets. It is one that appeals alike to idealistic humanitarian sentiments, to the dictates of sound policy and strategy, and to legitimate commercial aims.
The President cannot make clouds to rain and cannot make the corn to grow, he cannot make business good; although when these things occur, political parties do claim some credit for the good things that have happened in this way.
Don't worry over what the newspapers say. I don't. Why should anyone else? I told the truth to the newspaper correspondents - but when you tell the truth to them they are at sea.
The world is not going to be saved by legislation.
The truth is that in my present life I dont remember that I ever was president.
Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution and the one which, united with that of personal liberty, has contributed more to the growth of civilization than any other institution established by the human race.
We are all imperfect. We can not expect perfect government.
I love judges, and I love courts. They are my ideals, that typify on earth what we shall meet hereafter in heaven under a just God.
We live in a stage of politics, where legislators seem to regard the passage of laws as much more important than the results of their enforcement.
The intoxication of power rapidly sobers off in the knowledge of its restrictions and under the prompt reminder of an ever-present and not always considerate press, as well as the kindly suggestions that not infrequently come from Congress.
The publishers profess to be the agents of heaven in establishing virtue and therefore that they ought to receive some subsidy from the government. I can ask no stronger refutation to this claim
than the utterly unscrupulous methods pursued by them in seeking to influence Congress on this subject.
Politics, when I am in it, makes me sick.
The welfare of the farmer is vital to that of the whole country.
I'll be damned if I am not getting tired of this. It seems to be the profession of a President simply to hear other people talk.
If humor be the safety of our race, then it is due largely to the infusion into the American people of the Irish brain.
There is only one thing I wast to say about Ohio that has a political tinge, and that is that I think a mistake has been made of recent years in Ohio in failing to continue as our representatives the same people term after term. I do not need to tell a Washington audience, among whom there are certainly some who have been interested in legislation, that length of service in the House and in the Senate is what gives influence.
Presidents may go to the seashore or to the mountains. Cabinet officers may go about the country explaining how fortunate the country is in having such an administration, but the machinery at Washington continues to operate under the army of faithful non-commissioned officers, and the great mass of governmental business is uninterrupted.
Enthusiasm for a cause sometimes warps judgment.