Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. IV.djvu/230

190 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS never seemed ripe for undertaking a task which all the political portents indicated would be fraught with vexation for the next president who should lay hand to it. Mr. Taf t appears to have been not unconscious of the stake he was hazarding, but his platform left him no alternative. In his desire to come into personal touch with the people, President Taft exceeded all his prede cessors in journeys away from Washington, and punctuated his trips with many speeches. He had no native gift of eloquence, and the discipline of the courts had wrung out of his style every atom of the dramatic. Although realizing his short comings as an orator, and willing to take pains with his choice of words in expounding a prin ciple which he deemed of real consequence, he was indifferent as to forms in his ordinary utterances, preferring an off-hand and often careless phrase ology to one that betrayed any weighing of effects. As a result, his opinions are today quoted in every court, while his political speeches neither produced any notably happy effect at the time of their de livery, nor cling now in the memory of their hearers. For politics in the narrower sense, he proved dur ing his presidency that he had little taste and less talent. His private virtues were unstintingly honored, he won the liking of men wherever their contact with him was intimate enough to establish terms of mutual understanding, and some of his