RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
"Mrs. Taft, you mark my word," said he, "the President will be re-elected in November!"
"Well," said I, "you may be right, but just the same I intend to pack everything up when I leave Beverly, and I shall take the linen and silver home."
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At a dinner given by the Lotos Club in New York, just ten days after Mr. Wilson's election in 1912, Mr. Taft said:
"The legend of the lotos eaters was that if they partook of the fruit of the lotos tree they forgot what had happened in their country and were left in a state of philosophic calm in which they had no desire to return to it.
"I do not know what was in the mind of your distinguished invitation committee when I was asked to attend this banquet. They came to me before election. At first I hesitated to accept lest when the dinner came I should be shorn of interest as a guest and be changed from an active and virile participant in the day's doings of the Nation to merely a dissolving view. I knew that generally on an occasion of this sort the motive of the diners was to have a guest whose society should bring them more closely into contact with the great present and the future and not be merely a reminder of what has been. But, after further consideration, I saw in the name of your club the possibility that you were not merely cold, selfish seekers after pleasures of your own, and that perhaps you were organised to furnish consolation to those who mourn, oblivion to those who would forget, an opportunity for a swan song to those about to disappear.…
"The Presidency is a great office to hold. It is a great honour and it is surrounded with much that makes it full of pleasure and enjoyment for the occupant, in spite of its heavy responsibilities and the shining mark that it presents for misrepresentation and false attack.…Of course the
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