A SE SS WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT PROFESSOR IN POLITICS 1857 — Sept. 15, William Howard Taft born in Cincinnati. 1878-—Graduated at Yale. 1887.90—Judge of the Superior Court. 1890.2—Solicitor General of the United States. 1892.1900—United States circuit judge. 190Q0.04—Commissioner in and governor of the Philip- pines. 1904.8 Secretary of war. 1909-—Inaugurated twenty-sixth president, aged fifty-one. Roosevelt and Taft HEN WwW. Pennsylvania avenope on March 4, 1000, It was the time since Jackson and Van had first luren than 70 years before, that a retiring president would not have preferred an- other seat mate and specessor than the ene whom the fortunes of had thrust upon him. politics Reosevelt alone selected his success. or, Naturally, everyone assumed that we were to have a Roosevelt istration by another name, and it was expected im the campaign that ex-president would not go farther away from the White House @yster Bay. the depths The fate of Africa. of William Howard net met it and borne it with a smile He was abler, upright, mdependent than some far more suc- eessfal But by bent training he and more presidents, was a judge, As Manila, Taft of his lawgiver and governer of had won oriental subjects, ambition of his life. In a year and inet as secretary of war—and 1856—December 28, Woodrow Wilson born at Staunton, Va. 1879-—Graduated at Princeton. 1885--Married Ellen Louise Ax- sen of Savannah, Ga. 1885.8 Associate professor at Bryn Mawr. 1888.00 Professor at Wesleyan university in Connecticut. 1890.1902—Professor at Prince. ton. 1902.10-—President of Princeton, 1911.13—Governor of New Jer. sey. 1913-—March 4, inaugurated twenty.seventh president, aged fifty-six. | EITHER Woodrow Wilson | his administration has yet d into history, withse judgment on | them it would be folly to try to fore tell, Nevertheless, much of the record of the pPesideney is made up closed, and may be summarized at Pass @ the weakness strength. He thought he was enough to make a president. But real presidents are born, not made, The Roesevelt was gone, the the reactionary forces, emerged from their seven and one-half years in the cyclone cellar. The moment the political broncho felt the tenderfoot on its hack, it bucked, am] threw Taft from the seat of leader ship. The thing the rank and fle of Republicans knew, the party was slipping into the old rot from whieh Roosevelt had jerked it when first he laid apon it his master ful hand. ¢ But the people refused to go back, Bight months after Taft's Inangura- tiom, the clection of 190 sounded a clear warming of the sverwhelmed the party in the congres. Roosevelt had moment standpatters, next hack William Howard Taft. sionabielection of 1910, and which all but destroyed it in the presidential evlection of 1912, According to a story that was told of Taft, a curious stranger asked a Washington where he would stand the best chance of seeing the dest in the few spare hours that he had between trains. “Right where you are” was the reply. “He's al- ways either taking a train or getting off of one.” Taft was the first president to draw the present salary of $75,000. Con press had also adopted, two years bee fore he caine in, the custom of allow. Ing $25,000 yearly for the traveling expenses of the president, and he be. smne the great presidential traveler, making a record of 150,000 miles in four years, as he went about the country appealing for a reversal of the verdict against his administration, In vain he strove to turn back the tide, which only sported with him. After having elected him by 1.200. #00 plurality, the people parted with Taft more in sorrow than anger, They did not question that He was a good president, but that Is a secondary consideration. A president most be rst of all a politician and a leader, Woodrow Wilson at 30, demerits of almost every president while he remains the central figure of partisan strife. "A statesman is a politician who is dead.” sald Thomas B. Reed. In this age of ours, when men are going to school to learn business and farming and all manser of vocations, {it was natural that there should appear in the White House a man like Wood row Wilson, who had learned polities in the classroom rather than in the wardfoom. The eighth of our Virginia born presidents—in reality he lg not a Virginian, but the son of an Ohle {clergyman and of an English mother— {was a student or teacher of the sei ence, or rather the art of governing for {30 years before he held a politienl toffice. | That fact was left out of their reek ! oning by the Demoeratie hosses of eor- | rupt, machine-ruled New Jersey when | they summoned the president of Prine i ton university from the golf links one { afternoon in the fall of 1910 to receive nomination governor. When | this supposed novice In polities de | elared, as he floundered through what, i ag he had to own op, was his first po litical speech, that if elected governor he wotild govern, the politicians nudged one and laughed in their sleeves at the ides of a professar {ry ling to run their machine. They laugh ed out loud when they saw him actual i the for another begin to play polities out of a book. | Of all things, it was a book which he himself had written In his youthful school days merely as a thesis for his The young the discovery created a vac gradunte-student made i that our Constitution i to fill. Alas, popular leader=zhip out of a book. Where other leaders of our demo is one of the least electric, least dra matic of our presidents, with no anec | political career to vitalize him to the general Imagination. logie of the political situation and little to hig popularity. His academic aloof. ness from polities, at a time when pol: iticians had fallen inte disfavor, made him the avaliable man 10r governor in 1910, A= a candidate for president, he ran n poor second te Champ Clark in the popular primaries of 1012. He was nominated at Baltimore enly after 45 ballots, and then only as a resnlt of Bryan's overthrow of the steam roller, And he was olected by the division of the Republicans between Roosevelt and Taft, though he received a smaller voth than the Democrats had polled in three past elections, It is the tragedy of Woodrow Wil son's nature that when the elements were mixed In him, magnetism was de. nied him, that lodestone which draws the hearts of men. The head has been the powerhonse of hin leadership, (Copyright, 19%. by James Morgan) i | ) Three Hundred Years Ago ¢ THE PILGRIM FATHERS Held the First American THANKSGIVING FEAST ANS NL MERICA, England and Helland, the three nations most concerned with the landing of the Pilgrims Decem- Plymouth, Mass, celebrating thix year Pe the Pligrims”™ runs over into fen. 1620, at have heen Tercentenary of nd the 1021 celebration with many Interesting tures on the program. the Pilgrims did not first Thanks Ro, though 621 had been gathered, the “Tercentenary of the being observed, Is aiso properly of Thanksgiving.” as every good American knows, December. Thelr first At one time only Brew. were hunger little i Pilgrims," now the "*Tercentenars The Pligrims, landed at Plymouth in a hard lish and to got took he winter was one ster, Stan five other hardy ones Hardships, toll the about 1 2 not et Weil enough nd sickness avy from colony But in thelr fortunes that followed, and by autumn they had twenty-six and ready for This Industry, had been re harvest. Now food and of the winter were Bradford ordered a in America, from the Imagination It is the scene In part. The his recorded that the first Thanksgiving fair. Of course there was the min color that glorifies New Red, gold and bronze leaves and carpeted the ground. Purple the tree-cliinbing vines marshes, Blue and the uplands Over all Iay the haze summer,” and, as the crowning still autumn air the smoke from the seven log cabins of the colony. the spring and summer improved, made it cleared AOTres cultivation, too, warded by a bounteous fuel sufficient for the laid In Then Governor Thanksgiving, the first With a little help fo reconsirmct needs Fuagland falls today, the trees img from re thick theadows, on the goldenrod the teuch, rose into the It was vet early In the day when a yell rent the air, and Maseagoit and his .dghters arrived Hastlly peeking into their ovens the women joined the They lined up slong the path leading to the government house I and with redskins., Ninety Indians had accepted the invitation. The women rushed the men to welcome guests, cheered the | were exchanging health greetings with the "com. pany.” Came a roll of drums, and the colony made its way devoutly to the meeting house for worship, {| It was a simple, short service. At the door, as | wae the custom, stood a guard watching over the { little settlement. Eternal vigilance, even with friendly Indians present, was the price of life, | Then, when the benediction had been spoken, all to the tables of rough boards, hand hewn from trees, set on tresties in the open alr. It Is possible to give a good guess at the good The harvest had | been bounteonus., The hunters had been snecess ful. And doubtless Old Mother Nature, who had been %0 merciless to the colonists, was now gen erous. So here is the possible menu: | things that graced the board. Meat Soup Clam Chowder Vegetable Soup Oyster Stew Bea Fish Lobster Fried Oysters Brook Trout Steamed Clams Venison Wild Goose Blackbird Ple Wild Turkey Wild Dueck Game Pastry Cranberries Jams Suceotash Hominy Beans Samp Tarnipa Jellies trumpkin Ple Hickory Nuts Beech Nuts The women in thelr dark gowns, set off at the neck and cuffs with bits of white, with wisps of hair peeping out from under thelr whita hoods v children lung t the women's skirts and loo the Indians, full regn d hes who had come in G8, paints d faces and with bows and their sides inner finished, tables cleared and were PA 1 3 andi aoa in 4 ¢ men rested thelr backs against stumps to the Indians, decided it digestion jut hadn't to dance have its w ay therited d RORLIONS, Was lime and danced the So they yelped and jumped around to the delight of the settiers and to fright of the ehildren Miles proxy, "ey py { : } bride hy Standish, the same who lost =n Tedd ' soldiers drified The little hang B88 0 Hmax mate The Indians cheered and crowded the capiain while he at tempted to explain to them the mechanism of his hy eras hiunderhus out his company of twenty and them before the Indians Ye rs and went fired through its maneu couple of salvos from hiock muskets. lostily, around Then the ob saping, staged. the tested as now, sports were a part of of the day In a and FH seTVADnCe clear space,” other athletic were thelr their jackets Evidently no records were low. running The Indians eolonists for ered, them games aside fur cloaks and off Inid peeled ool the honors nothing «in for the official score books have this meet course of three hundred vears the has become a national grew gradually sand not Thanks- concerning In the ecole bration of Thonksgiving eustom. Its chservance until the Cifil war giving proclamations annual recur- rence, The president's Thanksgiving proclamation is now supplemented by that of the governors of the states, In 17581 the Thanksgiving recommendation took, for the first time, the form and name of a procia mation. Op September 13 Roger Sherman, sec onded by John Witherspoon, moved that Thursday, December 13, be selected as a day of thanksgiving This Roger Shermitin Is unique In our history In asmuch as he iz the only man who signed all four of the Great Documents: Articles of Associa tion. 1774; Articles of Confederation, 1775: Dee iaration of Independence, 1776, and Constitution, 1787. The observance were our national issued with general official whs growth of the Thanksgiving quite gradunl, The setts Bay Colony officially designated such a cele Day bration in 1630, Connecticut followed example in 1680, and the Dutch of the New Netheriands in February, 1644, The day of observance colonies holding thelr Thanksgiving as early as July and others as as February; but, by degrees, it came to the great harvest celebration, thus preserving the true significance of the first Thanksgiving Day. The first officially appointed Thanksgiving Day observed by the whole nation was the twenty. ¢«ixth of November, 1780, which George Washing: ton proclaimed as a day for rendering the thanks of the people to Heaven for the good fortune that was theirs at that time. Washington had been in office just xix months as the first President of the United States. This document is couched in an exalted strain that should bear its message anew to every Ameri- can today, After a brief preamble, the proclama- tion says: “Now, therefore, I fo recommend and assign, Thursday, the twenty-sixth of November next, to be devoted by the people of these states to the service of that great and glorious Being who Is the beneficient author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be, That we may then unite in ren- dering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for Mis kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to thelr becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquillity, union and plenty which we have since enjoyed: for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the elvil and religious liberty with which we are blessed and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing knowledge, and, in general, for all the great favors which He hath been pleased to confer upon us, “And also that we may then unite In mest humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other fransgros. gions: to enable us all, whether In public or private stations, to perform our several duties properly and punctually : to render cur rational varied, some of the iate government 1 bless! being no 1g government directly n tional lnwe ' oheyed : to protect and especially su and to Bless and peace and concord : and practice inerease of true religion of science among them and t eraily to grant unto all mankind such pros rity ne He alone of temporal knows to be het “Glven York, the Lord, nine, of New vear of our under uy hand at af Oetoher, in the third day ene thousand seven hund and eighty “GEORGE WASHINGTON." There i=, as stated, for var Thanksgiving proclamations nor date. In evidence of this President Andrew John- Thanksgiving designated the first Thursday in December, 1865. If we speak of Thanksgiving day ax a national institntion it dates back to the Revolution, but if we have in mind annual harvest ng day it be comes nationalized ption of it by the several appointment was hy Abraham 20, 1863. That prociamation no statutory provision for their son's first prociamatior the through the and the first ! November in part, sintes ag follows “The year that is drawing to its close has been of fruitfu Needful diversion filled with the blessings healthful skies girongth from the flelds of pen “ f and of i r to the national the shuttle or the ship; the defense have nt of our settlements, an and of the borders well of metals, hereto n notwith standing the waste that has been made in camp, the siege and the battlefield, and the country joleing in the augmented strength and vigor, ig permitted to expect contin uance of years with large increase of freedom. “No hath nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things, They are the gracious gift of the most high God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. “It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, fervently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. 1 do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday in November next as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father, who dwelieth In the heavens, And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singn- lar deliverances and blessings they do alse, with tumble penitence for our national perversencss and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourn- ers or sufferers In the lamentable civil strife In which we are now unavoldably engaged, snd fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and te restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and union. i “In testimony whereof I Lave hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States te be affixed. . “Done at the city of Washington, the third day of October, A. D. 1868, and of the Independence of the United States, the elghty-eighth, “ABRAHAM LINCOLN» So it was Abraham Lincoln who first names the last Thursday in November in his proclama- tion of 1863 and thus fixed the date of the anneal onlehration of Thanksgiving. ron CofE as have yielded even more abundantly than fore. Population has steadils reased re consciousness of human counsel devised, ¥ * #
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers