Taft Pardons Van Schaick

On December 19, 1912, President William Howard Taft, during the waning days of his administration, exercised his power to grant pardons by giving one to Capt. William H. Van Schaick. In the summer of 1904, Schaick was skipper of the General Slocum, an excursion paddlewheeler that caught fire in the East River off New York City. More than a thousand people died in the disaster, and the captain was eventually convicted of criminal negligence in the incident, which was New York's worst case of mass death until September 11, 2001.

When he received his pardon, Van Schaick had served three-and-a-half years of his 10-year sentence in Sing Sing, but had been paroled earlier in 1912. His wife and other supporters had been campaigning for clemency since his sentencing. President Roosevelt had declined to pardon Van Schaick, but President Taft decided otherwise. Naturally, the decision upset many others, especially relatives of those who died on the General Slocum and their sympathizers.

Yet the president was within his rights. Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution gives him broad pardoning powers: "The President ... shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment."

Jurist, which is maintained by the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, notes that there have been attempts to curtain that authority: "Shortly after President Gerald Ford’s controversial pardon of Richard Nixon in 1974, then-Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would have added the following sentence to the pardon clause: 'No pardon granted an individual by the President under section 2 of Article II shall be effective if Congress by resolution, two-thirds of the members of each House concurring therein, disapproves the granting of the pardon within 180 days of its issuance.'

"In 1993, a member of the House of Representatives introduced a Resolution proposing the following language: 'The President shall only have the power to grant a reprieve or a pardon for an offense against the United States to an individual who has been convicted of such an offense.'... In 2000, the proposed Crime Victims Rights Amendment provided that a victim of crime or violence had the right 'to reasonable notice of and an opportunity to submit a statement concerning any proposed pardon or commutation of a sentence.' "

None of these efforts went anywhere. President Obama has essentially the same pardoning power that President Washington did (who used it sparingly, however, pardoning only 16 people in his two terms).

Twain Didn't Care for TR

Mark Twain had opinions about many things, including some of the presidents of his time. On the occasion of Twain's birthday, the following are items he wrote toward the end of his life, expressing himself on former President Cleveland and President Theodore Roosevelt, as well as President-elect Taft.

On Grover Cleveland: In a letter to Jean Clemens, June 19, 1908.

Of all our public men of today he stands first in my reverence & admiration, & the next one stands two-hundred-&-twenty-fifth. He is the only statesman we have now. ... Cleveland drunk is a more valuable asset to this country than the whole batch of the rest of our public men sober. He is high-minded; all his impulses are great & pure & fine. I wish we had another of this sort.

On Theodore Roosevelt: In a letter written March 6, 1908, and reprinted in the New York Times in 1912, after Twain's death.

Our people have adored this showy charlatan as perhaps no impostor of his brood has been adored since the Golden Calf, so it is to be expected that the Nation will want him back again after he is done hunting other wild animals heroically in Africa, with the safeguard and advertising equipment of a park of artillery and a brass band.

On William Howard Taft: In a letter dated March 2, 1909, two days before Taft was inaugurated. It too was reprinted in the New York Times in 1912.

You can't help but like Mr. Taft. The country likes him and respects him; and I want him to make the best people in the country continue to respect him and every now and then dislike him -- sure proof, in a public servant, that he is doing his whole duty, as he sees it, regardless of personal consequences. He has the natural gifts, the culture, the experience, the training, the sanity, the right-mindedness, the honesty, the truthfulness, the modesty, and the dignity properly requisite in a President of the United States, the most responsible post on the planet. In a word, he possesses every qualification the other one [Theodore Roosevelt] was destitute of.

Robert Taft Dies

Nicknamed "Mr. Republican" for his unflinching partisanship, long-time Senator from Ohio Robert A. Taft died on July 31, 1953, from cancer. Unlike his father, President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft, Sen. Taft actually wanted to be president, and made bids for the Republican nomination three times.

He was edged out of the nomination by Wendell Willkie in 1940; Thomas Dewey in 1948; and Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, who went on to be elected.

September 15, 1857:William Howard Taft's Birthday

Today is the birthday of William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States and 10th Chief Justice of the United States. Mostly forgotten are humorous anecdotes about him, but these days there's a web site devoted to the subject, so funny Taft stories aren't completely relegated to library microfilms.

For example: "Even by 1905 this story was old, but as an article that year noted, 'It is such a good old story that it can never be printed too often': When Taft was Governor of the Philippines he explored the mountainous islands. After a particularly arduous trip, he cabled to Secretary of State Elihu Root, 'Rode forty miles on horseback to-day; feeling fine.' Root wired back, 'Glad you are feeling fine; how is the horse?'

Several pages of such stories are here.

August 16, 1928:Carl Panzram Arrested

On August 16, 1928, Washington, DC, police arrested a 37-year-old man for burglary. As it turned out, they got more than they had bargained for -- he was in fact a murderer, besides being a thief and rapist. "His name was Carl Panzram, one of Americas most ferocious, unrepentant serial killers," wrote Mark Gado in Court TV's Crime Library. "Embittered by years of torture, beatings and sexual abuse both in and out of prison, Panzram evolved into a man who was meanness personified..."

And, oddly enough, someone who had burglarized the home of former president William Howard Taft. "In the summer of 1920, Panzram spent a great deal of time in the city of New Haven, Connecticut. He preferred places with activity and lots of people. More people meant more targets, more money and more victims. It also meant the cops were busy; maybe too busy to bother with the likes of him. He went out at night, cruising the city streets looking for an easy mark. If he didn't mug an unsuspecting drunk or rape a young boy, he would look for a house to burglarize.

"In August, he found a house located at 113 Whitney Avenue that looked 'fat' and ready for the taking. It was an old three-story colonial, the home of an aristocrat, he hoped. He broke in through a window and began to ransack the bedrooms. Inside a spacious den, Panzram found a large amount of jewelry, bonds and a .45 caliber automatic handgun. The name on the bonds was William H. Taft, the same man who he thought sentenced him to three years at Leavenworth in 1907. At that time, Taft had been the secretary of war. In 1920, he was the former president of the United States and current professor of law at Yale University in New Haven. After stealing everything he could carry, Panzram escaped through the same window and hit the streets carrying a large bag of loot."

The complete story starts here. Considering what a bad hombre Panzram was, Taft was lucky he wasn't home at time.

May 30, 1922:Dedication of the Lincoln Memorial

Construction of the Lincoln Memorial began in 1914, but its dedication had to wait until Memorial Day 1922. President Harding, who was not quite born on the day that Lincoln died, presided over the ceremony, with Chief Justice and former President Taft, and Robert Todd Lincoln, then 79, also as honored guests (the three are pictured, with Lincoln on the right). Former President Wilson was still alive at the time, but presumably too ill to attend.

About 50,000 people attended the dedication, including a handful of Union and Confederate veterans. The event also marked one of the first uses of new public address technology, with loudspeakers ringing the top of the monument. Other aspects of the event weren't as advanced. Robert Motem, president of the Tuskegee Institute and one of the main speakers, sat in a segregated seat away from the speakers platform.

Since then, the Lincoln Memorial has been the site of innumerable public events, taking an iconic place in the American imagination. In 1929, the building was added to the reverse of the $5 bill, and in 1959 -- the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's birth -- it was added to the reverse of the Lincoln cent. It was also, curiously, the only US government building in Washington hit by fire in World War II. Anti-aircraft guns had been placed atop nearby government buildings, and one went off accidentally. Its projectile hit the roof of the Memorial, but caused no permanent damage.