Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. IV.djvu/231

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 191 implacable partisan foes were his good friends in social life. Notwithstanding his northern birth and anti-slavery ancestry, he had a warm spot in the heart of the south; yet at the polls he failed to break the solidarity of that section, even when its leading people were anxious to cut loose from tradition and take a new departure in national affairs. As contemptuous of mere forms in etiquette as in self-expression, it seemed almost irksome to him to have others show him special deference in their common intercourse. But let the judicial ermine be touched by so much as a breath of disparage ment, and all the combativeness that lurked in the depths of his nature sprang to the surface in an instant; for the courts appeared to him the inner most sanctuaries of human right, the rock-based bulwarks of the social order. Far from blind to their imperfections, he never ceased seeking to pro cure improvements in their procedure which would eliminate needless delays and promote the dispen sation of real justice. Nor was anyone readier to admit that bad men, and inefficient, occasionally found their way into judicial places; but in that event, he insisted, the obvious remedy was removal by impeachment : he had no patience with any pro posal to destroy or cripple so excellent a piece of public machinery as the present judicial system because it needed oiling now and then, or the read-