Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. IV.djvu/229

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 189 on his retirement he removed to New Haven to become Kent professor of law in Yale university. Reviewing his administration as a whole, and recognizing all its high aims, future historians can hardly fail to be impressed with its tragic atmos phere. It came unsought and undesired, and was born to a perilous inheritance. Hard times had settled upon the country. The national treasury was badly depleted. The enormous popularity of Mr. Roosevelt, which had enabled him to accom plish much that would have been impossible to anyone less favored, was in striking contrast with the hesitant and half -suspicious reception accorded his successor. Mr. Roosevelt s picturesque per sonality, his exuberant energy, his lightning-like grasp of new things, his natural pugnacity, his political shrewdness and trained sense of publicity values, were bound to put into eclipse the studious habit, the more deliberate decisions, the lenient temperament, and, if the phrase be permissible, the judicial indolence, of Mr. Taft. All Mr. Roose velt s career had followed executive lines; no such experience had come to Mr. Taft, even his gov ernorship of the Philippines calling into play the qualities of a paternal judge and lawgiver rather than those of an administrator. During Mr. Roosevelt s last four years in office there had been more or less talk about tariff revision, but, with the medley of other projects in view, the time had