May 05, 2016 - Sale 2413

Sale 2413 - Lot 202

Price Realized: $ 422
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
"THE PRESIDENCY . . . HAS NO ATTRACTION FOR ME" TAFT, WILLIAM HOWARD. Two Typed Letters Signed, "WmHTaft" or "Bill," to Yale classmate Clarence H. Kelsey, each with holograph corrections. The first, as Solicitor General, urging Kelsey to help restrain Yale alum Timmy Woodruff's enthusiastic political support. With a one-line holograph postscript inquiring about Kelsey's "valedictorians." The second, as Secretary of War, considering the future of his political career. Each 1 page, 4to, "Department of Justice" or "War Department" stationery; each with browning from previous matting, cello tape remnants from prior matting to each at upper and lower edges verso, folds. (TFC) Washington, 12 March 1891; 11 April 1906
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1891: "I thank you for your very kind letter to the Pres. I rather think that you would better rein in Timmy Woodruff. I don't care much for political support, and I have about all the recommendations from members of the bar of New York and more than I have had any right to expect. I thank you very much for your interest in the matter. I should be obliged to you if you would see that Timmy does not go into the political business. I fear the effect of it."
1906: ". . . You are all wrong in any suspicion as to the President's motive. I could show you a letter to me which explains the whole situation. Harry might show it to you if you would go and see him, because I have sent him a copy. I am not at all decided yet as to what I ought to do. So far as the Presidency is concerned, it is as remote as possible. It has no attraction for me, and to me the suggestion that I should wait for that is only a humorous one. My only hesitation to accept the Supreme Court Judgeship is caused by the doubt whether if I leave the War Department it will not affect injuriously the cause of the Filipinos. Now I cannot expect to remain in this office all of the time, and the question is whether by remaining in sometime longer I can do good enough to justify my failure to embrace the opportunity to go into a place where I must think it possible for one to be of great use to the country for the next twenty years. I should like very much to go with Fred Potter if I can, but I doubt the possibility of it."