PRESIDENT WILLIAM H. TAFT - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 09/10/1910 - HFSID 5097

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT
As President, he signs a typed letter offering to meet with an Alabama Republican.
Typed Letter signed: "Wm Howard Taft" as President, 1 page, 7x8¾. Beverly, Massachusetts, 1910 September 10. On White House stationery to Dr. Lewis Edelman, Mobile Alabama. In full: "I have yours of September 6th to my Secretary, in which you speak of the Progressive Republican Party of Alabama and say that you would like to come to Beverly between the 20th and 24th of September. I shall not be in Beverly at that time. I shall be in Cincinnati, and I shall be glad to see you there if you can arrange with Mr. Norton for an interview at that time. Sincerely yours". Very faint pencil note (unknown hand) in lower left corner: "Sept. 22, 1910. I trust that he may be nominated but not elected."William Howard Taft (1857-1930) was Governor of the Philippines (1901-1904), Secretary of War (1904-1909), 27th of the United States (1909-1913) and Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court (1921-1930). His bruising convention battle with former ally and patron Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 split the Republican Party, allowing the election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Taft as President was caught in the middle between progressives and conservatives and constrained by a more limited view of Presidential powers than TR had possessed, but historians tend to view his term of office more positively than did most of his contemporaries. His skills as Chief Justice are widely recognized. While President, Taft spent his summers in Beverly, Massachusetts, a seacoast town north of Boston. While the exact origin and meaning of the pencil note is unclear, it was a safe bet that no Republican was going to be elected to public office in Alabama in 1910. Soiled. Lightly creased at edges. Mailing folds, not at signature.