American Minute with Bill Federer
President was also Chief Justice? William H. Taft
"Advancement of modern civilization ... dependent ... on the spread of Christianity "
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He was the
only U.S. President
to be appointed
Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
His name was
William Howard Taft
, born SEPTEMBER 15, 1857.
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After the Spanish-American War,
Taft
was appointed by
President McKinley
as the
first Governor of the Philippines,
1901-04.
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President Theodore Roosevelt
appointed
Taft
as
Secretary of War
in 1904, then in 1906 appointed him
Provisional Governor of Cuba.
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In 1908,
Taft
ran for President against Democrat candidate
William Jennings Bryan.
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William Jennings Bryan
edited the
Omaha World Herald
and founded
The Commoner Newspaper.
Bryan
served as a
Colonel in the Spanish-American War
and a
Congressman
from Nebraska. Later, he was
Secretary of State
under President Woodrow Wilson.
William Jennings Bryan
was so popular that the
State of Nebraska
placed a statue of him in the
U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall.
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Bryan
gave over 600 public speeches in the course of
his campaign for President,
the most famous being
"The Prince of Peace,"
printed in
The New York Times,
September 7, 1913:
"I enjoy making a political speech ... but I would rather speak on religion than on politics. I commenced speaking on the stump when I was only twenty, but I commenced speaking in the church six years earlier-and I shall be in the church even after I am out of politics ..."
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Bryan
reasoned:
"Man feels the weight of his sins and looks for One who is sinless ...
Religion is the foundation of morality in the individual and in the group of individuals ...
A religion which teaches personal responsibility to God gives strength to morality ...
We must begin with something-we must start somewhere-and the Christian begins with God ...
The Gospel of the Prince of Peace gives us the only hope that the world has."
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William Howard Taft
won the election and was sworn in as the 27th President on March 4, 1909, stating in his Inaugural Address:
"I invoke the considerate sympathy and support of my fellow citizens and the aid of the
Almighty God
in the discharge of my responsible duties."
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Taft
was the largest President, weighing over 300 lbs. A bathtub was installed in the White House for him large enough to hold four men.
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President Taft
stated in a
National Day of Thanksgiving Proclamation,
November 15, 1909:
"The people of the United States are wont to meet in their usual places of worship on a day of thanksgiving appointed by the Civil Magistrate to return
thanks to God
for the great mercies and benefits which they have enjoyed.
During the past year we have been highly blessed ... It is altogether fitting that we should humbly and gratefully acknowledge the
Divine Source of these blessings ...
I hereby appoint ... a day of general thanksgiving, and I call upon the people on that day, laying aside their usual vocations, to repair to their churches and unite in appropriate services of
praise and thanks to Almighty God."
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President William H. Taft
proclaimed, November 5, 1910:
"These blessings have not descended upon us in restricted measure, but overflow and abound. They are the
blessings and bounty of God ...
In accordance with the wise custom of the civil magistrate since the first settlements in this land and with the rule established from the foundation of this Government ...
do appoint ...
a day of National Thanksgiving and Prayer,
enjoining the people upon that day to meet in their churches for the
praise of Almighty God
and to return heartfelt thanks to Him for all His goodness and loving-kindness."
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President Taft
met with
Booker T. Washington
and encouraged his program for uplifting Black Americans through
education
and
entrepreneurship.
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Booker T. Washington
founded the
National Negro Business League
in 1900, growing it to 600 chapters. This was more than a decade before the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
was formed.
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Booker T. Washington
stated:
"Anyone can seek a job, but it requires a person of rare ability to create a job ... What we should do in our schools is to turn out fewer job seekers and more job creators."
Harvard President Charles W. Eliot
spoke at
Tuskegee's 25th anniversary
in 1906, stating:
"By 1905,
Tuskegee
produced more self-made millionaires than
Harvard, Yale
and
Princeton
combined."
Booker T. Washington's
goal of raising up successful
independent Black entrepreneurs
contrasted with
W.E.B. Du Bois's goal of reparations and entitlements,
which led to a debilitating dependency on government hand-outs.
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Inspired by
Booker T. Washington's National Negro Business League supporting
entrepreneurship,
Taft
created the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
in 1912, to counterbalance the Marxist-inspired labor movement.
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Taft
stated, as recorded in Donald F. Anderson's
William Howard Taft: A Conservative's Conception of the Presidency
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1973):
"The President can exercise NO power which cannot fairly be traced to some specific grant of power in the Constitution or act of Congress."
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Because the Capitol House Chamber, designed in 1857, was running of out of space for seats, Taft's administration approved the
Apportionment Act of 1911
which
limited the number of Congressmen to 435.
This forever changed the Congressional ratio and how Americans would be represented.
Instead of
one Congressman for every 30,000 people,
it now required a census be taken every ten years and the
nation's population be divided by 435.
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Unfortunately,
lack of foresight
has resulted in the present situation of
one Congressman for every 700,000,
requiring candidates to spend their time seeking large financial contributions for their races.
This also effects how Presidents are elected, as
Electoral votes
are
apportioned
to the states based on the
number of Congressional seat
s.
If
states
can
increase their populations,
not only do they get more power to influence national policy through
more Congressional seats,
they also get
more electoral votes
to determine who the next President will be.
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President William H. Taft
stated in his
Thanksgiving Proclamation,
November 7, 1912:
"A God-fearing nation,
like ours, owes it to its inborn and sincere sense of moral duty to testify its
devout gratitude to the All-Giver
for the countless benefits its has enjoyed.
For many years it has been customary at the close of the year for the national Executive to call upon his fellow countrymen to offer
praise and thanks to God
for the manifold blessings vouchsafed to them ...
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... I,
William Howard Taft,
President of the United States of America, in pursuance of long-established usage and in response to the wish of the American people,
invite my countrymen ... to join ... in appropriate ascription of
praise and thanks to God
for the good gifts that have been our portion, and in humble prayer that His great mercies toward us may endure."
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In the spirit of
Theodore Roosevelt's Panama Canal project, Taft
encouraged
"Dollar Diplomacy"
for U.S. businesses to invest in
Latin America, Africa
and
East Asia.
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In his Annual Message, December 6, 1912,
William Howard Taft
stated:
"We would go as far as any nation in the world to avoid war, but we are a world power,
our responsibilities in the Pacific and the Atlantic, our defense of the Panama Canal, together with our enormous world trade and
our Missionary outposts on the frontiers of civilization,
require us to recognize our position as one of the foremost in the family of nations,
and to clothe ourselves with sufficient naval power to give force to our reasonable demands,
and to give weight to our influence in those directions of progress that
a powerful Christian nation should advocate."
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In the turbulent 1912 Presidential race,
Theodore Roosevelt's new third party
-- The Bull Moose Party -- split the
Republican voter base,
allowing
Democrat Woodrow Wilson
to be elected with only 41.8 percent of the vote.
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Woodrow Wilson's
term brought in the
16th Amendment
-
Income Tax,
and the
17th Amendment
- having
U.S. Senators no longer
chosen by
state legislators,
but instead by the popular vote, requiring candidates to spend their time seeking large financial contributions for their races.
Wilson
racially segregated
the Federal government and military, brought the U.S. into
World War I,
and tried to get the country to surrender its sovereignty to the globalist
League of Nations.
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After serving as President,
Taft
was chosen in 1913 to become a professor at
Yale Law School
and
president of the American Bar Association.
In 1921,
President Warren G. Harding
appointed
William Howard Taft
as
Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
As Chief Justice,
Taft
gave the
oath of office
to subsequent Presidents:
Calvin Coolidge
(1925) and
Herbert Hoover
(1929).
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Taft
was the first Justice to
employ full-time law clerks.
Taft
took the decentralized federal court system and for the first time ever united it
under the control of the Chief Justice.
This enhanced the emerging view that the Supreme Court was an
"independent" third branch
of government, and unfortunately gave momentum to the Court's progressive usurpation of powers.
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In 1929,
Taft
promoted the idea of moving the
Supreme Court
out of the
basement of the Capitol
into its own
Supreme Court building
across the street, which was completed in 1935.
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Back when he was campaigning for President,
William H. Taft
spoke at a missionary conference, August 5, 1908:
"Until I went to the Orient, until there was thrust upon me the responsibilities with reference to the extension of
civilization
in those far distant lands, I did not realize
the immense importance of foreign mission.
The truth is
we have got to wake up in this country.
We are not all there is in the world ...
No man can study the
movement of modern civilization
from an impartial standpoint and not realize that
Christianity, and the spread of Christianity, are the only basis for hope of modern civilization
in the growth of popular self-government.
The spirit of Christianity is pure democracy;
it is the
equality of man before God.
The
equality of man before the law,
which is, as I understand it,
the most Godlike manifestation that man has been able to make ..."
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Taft
continued:
"I am here to speak of ... the
advancement of modern civilization,
and ...
how dependent we are on the spread of Christianity
for any hope we may have of uplifting the people whom
Providence
has thrust upon us for our guidance.
I suppose I ought not to go into a discussion here of our business in the Philippines,
but I never can take up that subject without pointing the moral ... conviction that
our nation is ... charged with the obligation to help the unfortunate peoples of other countries
that are thrust upon us by faith onto their feet to become a self governing people ...
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... What there is in the Constitution of the United States is a breathing spirit that we are a nation with all the responsibilities that any nation ever had and ... it becomes the
Christian duty of a nation to assist another nation."
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American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission is granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate, with acknowledgment.
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Schedule Bill Federer for informative interviews & captivating PowerPoint presentations: 314-502-8924
[email protected]
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