cheka.
3rd November 2016, 07:31 PM
poking through recent history... I should know more about this guy. starting this thread as a place to post vids/info to study the man and the time period
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Taft
Robert Alphonso Taft (September 8, 1889 – July 31, 1953) was a conservative American politician, statesman, and presidential hopeful who served as a United States Senator from Ohio from 1939 until his death in 1953. A member of the Republican Taft political family, he was the elder son of William Howard Taft (the 27th President of the United States and 10th Chief Justice of the United States).
Taft was the Senate's main opponent of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal domestic policies.
After the president's death, Taft successfully led the conservative coalition's efforts to curb the power of labor unions. Taft was a leading advocate of non-interventionism in foreign policy. He failed in his quests to win the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 1940, 1948, and 1952.
Throughout that period he battled New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey (leader of the moderate "Eastern Establishment") for control of the party. Taft's biographer, James T. Patterson, portrayed Taft as honest, conscientious, courageous, dignified, and highly intelligent but also faulted Taft's competitiveness, lack of public-relations skills, and extreme partisanship.[1] A 1957 Senate committee named Taft as one of America's five greatest senators, along with Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Robert M. La Follette, Sr..
Opposition to World War II[edit]
Taft's greatest prominence during his first term came not from his fight against the New Deal but rather from his vigorous opposition to US involvement in the Second World War. A staunch non-interventionist, Taft believed that America should avoid any involvement in European or Asian wars and concentrate instead on solving its domestic problems. He believed that a strong military, combined with the natural geographic protection of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, would be adequate to protect America even if Germany overran all of Europe. Between the outbreak of war in September, 1939 and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 Taft opposed nearly all attempts to aid countries fighting Germany. That brought him strong criticism from many liberal Republicans, such as Wendell Willkie and Thomas E. Dewey, who felt that America could best protect itself by supporting the British and their allies. Although Taft fully supported the American war effort after Pearl Harbor, he continued to harbor a deep suspicion of American involvement in postwar military alliances, including North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Taft was the representative to speak in opposition to Japanese-American internment.[24]
1944 re-election[edit]
In 1944 Taft was nearly defeated in his bid for a second term in the Senate. His Democratic opponent, William G. Pickrel, received major support from Ohio's labor unions and internationalists, and lost by fewer than 18,000 votes out of nearly three million cast.[25] Taft lost Cleveland, the state's largest city, by 96,000 votes, but he carried 71 of the state's 88 counties and so avoided defeat.[25] Following his re-election, Taft became chairman of the Senate Republican Conference in 1944.
Condemnation of Nuremberg Trials[edit]
Taft condemned the postwar Nuremberg Trials as victor's justice under ex post facto laws, in which the people who won the war were the prosecutors, the judges, and the alleged victims, all at the same time. Taft condemned the trials as a violation of the most basic principles of American justice and internationally accepted standards in favor of a politicized version of justice in which court proceedings became an excuse for vengeance against the defeated.[26]
I question whether the hanging of those, who, however despicable, were the leaders of the German people, will ever discourage the making of aggressive war, for no one makes aggressive war unless he expects to win. About this whole judgment there is the spirit of vengeance, and vengeance is seldom justice. The hanging of the eleven men convicted will be a blot on the American record, which we shall long regret.[27]
His opposition to the trials was strongly criticized by Republicans and Democrats alike, and it is sometimes given as the main reason for his failure to secure the Republican nomination for president. Other observers, such as Senator John F. Kennedy (in Profiles in Courage), applauded Taft's principled stand even in the face of great bipartisan criticism.
Taft had the solid backing of the party's conservative wing. Former US Representative Howard Buffett of Nebraska (father of billionaire Warren Buffett) served as one of his campaign managers.[40] With Dewey no longer an active candidate, many political pundits regarded Taft as the frontrunner. However, the race changed when Dewey and other moderates were able to convince Dwight D. Eisenhower, the most popular general of World War II, to run for the nomination. Eisenhower ran because of his fear that Taft's non-interventionist views in foreign policy, especially his opposition to NATO, might benefit the Soviet Union in the Cold War.[41]
The fight between Taft and Eisenhower for the nomination was one of the closest and most bitter in American political history. When the Republican Convention opened in Chicago in July 1952, Taft and Eisenhower were neck-and-neck in delegate votes. On the convention's first day, Eisenhower's managers complained that Taft's forces had unfairly denied Eisenhower supporters delegate slots in several Southern states, including Texas, where the state chairman, Orville Bullington, was committed to Taft.
The Eisenhower partisans proposed to remove pro-Taft delegates in these states and replace them with pro-Eisenhower delegates; they called their proposal "Fair Play." Although Taft angrily denied having stolen any delegate votes, the convention voted to support Fair Play 658 to 548, and the Texans voted 33–5 for Eisenhower as a result. In addition, several uncommitted state delegations, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, agreed to support Eisenhower.
The addition of the uncommitted state delegations, combined with Taft's loss of many Southern delegates by the Fair Play proposal, decided the nomination in Eisenhower's favor. Despite his bitterness at his narrow defeat and his belief that he had been unfairly ambushed by the Eisenhower forces (including Dewey), Taft issued a brief statement after the convention conveying his congratulations and support to Eisenhower. Thereafter, however, he brooded in silence at his summer home in Quebec, complaining, "Every Republican candidate for President since 1936 has been nominated by the Chase National Bank."[42]
As the weeks passed, Eisenhower's aides worried that Taft and his supporters would sit on their hands during the campaign and that as a result Eisenhower might lose the election. In September 1952, Taft finally agreed to meet with Eisenhower, at Morningside Heights in New York City. There, to gain Taft's support, Eisenhower promised that he would take no reprisals against Taft partisans, would cut federal spending, and would fight "creeping socialism in every domestic field." In fact, Eisenhower and Taft agreed on most domestic issues; their disagreements were primarily in foreign policy.
Eisenhower firmly believed in NATO and was committed to the US support of anticommunism in the Cold War.
On May 26, 1953, Taft delivered his final speech, in which he presciently warned of the dangers of America's emerging Cold War foreign policy, specifically against US military involvement in Southeast Asia, which would later become the Vietnam War:
“ I have never felt that we should send American soldiers to the Continent of Asia, which, of course, included China proper and Indo-China, simply because we are so outnumbered in fighting a land war on the Continent of Asia that it would bring about complete exhaustion even if we were able to win.... So today, as since 1947 in Europe and 1950 in Asia, we are really trying to arm the world against Communist Russia, or at least furnish all the assistance which can be of use to them in opposing Communism.
Is this policy of uniting the free world against Communism in time of peace going to be a practical long-term policy? I have always been a skeptic on the subject of the military practicability of NATO.... I have always felt that we should not attempt to fight Russia on the ground on the Continent of Europe any more than we should attempt to fight China on the Continent of Asia.[
Death and legacy[edit]
In early 1953, Taft began to feel pain in his hips, and after a painful golf outing with President Eisenhower in April 1953 he entered Walter Reed Hospital for initial tests which led doctors to suspect a tumor or arthritis.[44] On May 26 he entered Holmes Hospital in Cincinnati for more extensive tests.[45] The doctors there discovered nodules on his forehead and abdomen, and after doing biopsies of samples of the nodules, found that they were malignant.[46] On June 7, he entered New York Hospital for more tests and treatment; to keep the news that he might have cancer a secret he registered under the assumed name "Howard Roberts, Jr.".[47]
His doctors there agreed with the diagnosis of cancer, but disagreed as to the source of the primary tumor and method of treatment. Some of his doctors advocated exploratory surgery to keep the malignancy from spreading, while other doctors thought the tumors had spread too far, were inoperable, and recommended x-ray therapy to keep him comfortable.[48] After his death, an autopsy determined that Taft had been stricken with pancreatic cancer, which had quickly reached metastasis and spread throughout his body.[49]
On June 10, 1953, Taft transferred his duties as Senate Majority Leader to Senator William F. Knowland of California. He did not resign his Senate seat and told reporters that he expected to recover and return to work.[50] However, his condition rapidly worsened, and Taft returned to New York Hospital for surgery on July 4 during a Senate recess.
The surgery "did not take long, for the doctors quickly discovered cancer everywhere...there was no longer any doubt" that his condition was terminal.[51] He died at New York Hospital on July 31, following a final brain hemorrhage just hours after his wife's final visit.[49] [52] His body lay in state in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol, where thousands of mourners offered their respects at his coffin.[53]
On August 3, 1953, a memorial service was held in the rotunda; in addition to his family the service was attended by Eisenhower, Vice-President Nixon, the cabinet, members of the Supreme Court, and Taft's congressional colleagues. Following the service his body was flown to Cincinnati, where he was buried in a private ceremony at Indian Hill Episcopal Church Cemetery.[53]
In 1957, a committee led by Senator John F. Kennedy selected Taft as one of five great senators whose portraits would adorn the President's Room off the Senate floor. Kennedy would feature him in Profiles in Courage, and Taft continues to be regarded by historians as one of the most powerful senators of the 20th century
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_-HDuxV7T4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Taft
Robert Alphonso Taft (September 8, 1889 – July 31, 1953) was a conservative American politician, statesman, and presidential hopeful who served as a United States Senator from Ohio from 1939 until his death in 1953. A member of the Republican Taft political family, he was the elder son of William Howard Taft (the 27th President of the United States and 10th Chief Justice of the United States).
Taft was the Senate's main opponent of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal domestic policies.
After the president's death, Taft successfully led the conservative coalition's efforts to curb the power of labor unions. Taft was a leading advocate of non-interventionism in foreign policy. He failed in his quests to win the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 1940, 1948, and 1952.
Throughout that period he battled New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey (leader of the moderate "Eastern Establishment") for control of the party. Taft's biographer, James T. Patterson, portrayed Taft as honest, conscientious, courageous, dignified, and highly intelligent but also faulted Taft's competitiveness, lack of public-relations skills, and extreme partisanship.[1] A 1957 Senate committee named Taft as one of America's five greatest senators, along with Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Robert M. La Follette, Sr..
Opposition to World War II[edit]
Taft's greatest prominence during his first term came not from his fight against the New Deal but rather from his vigorous opposition to US involvement in the Second World War. A staunch non-interventionist, Taft believed that America should avoid any involvement in European or Asian wars and concentrate instead on solving its domestic problems. He believed that a strong military, combined with the natural geographic protection of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, would be adequate to protect America even if Germany overran all of Europe. Between the outbreak of war in September, 1939 and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 Taft opposed nearly all attempts to aid countries fighting Germany. That brought him strong criticism from many liberal Republicans, such as Wendell Willkie and Thomas E. Dewey, who felt that America could best protect itself by supporting the British and their allies. Although Taft fully supported the American war effort after Pearl Harbor, he continued to harbor a deep suspicion of American involvement in postwar military alliances, including North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Taft was the representative to speak in opposition to Japanese-American internment.[24]
1944 re-election[edit]
In 1944 Taft was nearly defeated in his bid for a second term in the Senate. His Democratic opponent, William G. Pickrel, received major support from Ohio's labor unions and internationalists, and lost by fewer than 18,000 votes out of nearly three million cast.[25] Taft lost Cleveland, the state's largest city, by 96,000 votes, but he carried 71 of the state's 88 counties and so avoided defeat.[25] Following his re-election, Taft became chairman of the Senate Republican Conference in 1944.
Condemnation of Nuremberg Trials[edit]
Taft condemned the postwar Nuremberg Trials as victor's justice under ex post facto laws, in which the people who won the war were the prosecutors, the judges, and the alleged victims, all at the same time. Taft condemned the trials as a violation of the most basic principles of American justice and internationally accepted standards in favor of a politicized version of justice in which court proceedings became an excuse for vengeance against the defeated.[26]
I question whether the hanging of those, who, however despicable, were the leaders of the German people, will ever discourage the making of aggressive war, for no one makes aggressive war unless he expects to win. About this whole judgment there is the spirit of vengeance, and vengeance is seldom justice. The hanging of the eleven men convicted will be a blot on the American record, which we shall long regret.[27]
His opposition to the trials was strongly criticized by Republicans and Democrats alike, and it is sometimes given as the main reason for his failure to secure the Republican nomination for president. Other observers, such as Senator John F. Kennedy (in Profiles in Courage), applauded Taft's principled stand even in the face of great bipartisan criticism.
Taft had the solid backing of the party's conservative wing. Former US Representative Howard Buffett of Nebraska (father of billionaire Warren Buffett) served as one of his campaign managers.[40] With Dewey no longer an active candidate, many political pundits regarded Taft as the frontrunner. However, the race changed when Dewey and other moderates were able to convince Dwight D. Eisenhower, the most popular general of World War II, to run for the nomination. Eisenhower ran because of his fear that Taft's non-interventionist views in foreign policy, especially his opposition to NATO, might benefit the Soviet Union in the Cold War.[41]
The fight between Taft and Eisenhower for the nomination was one of the closest and most bitter in American political history. When the Republican Convention opened in Chicago in July 1952, Taft and Eisenhower were neck-and-neck in delegate votes. On the convention's first day, Eisenhower's managers complained that Taft's forces had unfairly denied Eisenhower supporters delegate slots in several Southern states, including Texas, where the state chairman, Orville Bullington, was committed to Taft.
The Eisenhower partisans proposed to remove pro-Taft delegates in these states and replace them with pro-Eisenhower delegates; they called their proposal "Fair Play." Although Taft angrily denied having stolen any delegate votes, the convention voted to support Fair Play 658 to 548, and the Texans voted 33–5 for Eisenhower as a result. In addition, several uncommitted state delegations, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, agreed to support Eisenhower.
The addition of the uncommitted state delegations, combined with Taft's loss of many Southern delegates by the Fair Play proposal, decided the nomination in Eisenhower's favor. Despite his bitterness at his narrow defeat and his belief that he had been unfairly ambushed by the Eisenhower forces (including Dewey), Taft issued a brief statement after the convention conveying his congratulations and support to Eisenhower. Thereafter, however, he brooded in silence at his summer home in Quebec, complaining, "Every Republican candidate for President since 1936 has been nominated by the Chase National Bank."[42]
As the weeks passed, Eisenhower's aides worried that Taft and his supporters would sit on their hands during the campaign and that as a result Eisenhower might lose the election. In September 1952, Taft finally agreed to meet with Eisenhower, at Morningside Heights in New York City. There, to gain Taft's support, Eisenhower promised that he would take no reprisals against Taft partisans, would cut federal spending, and would fight "creeping socialism in every domestic field." In fact, Eisenhower and Taft agreed on most domestic issues; their disagreements were primarily in foreign policy.
Eisenhower firmly believed in NATO and was committed to the US support of anticommunism in the Cold War.
On May 26, 1953, Taft delivered his final speech, in which he presciently warned of the dangers of America's emerging Cold War foreign policy, specifically against US military involvement in Southeast Asia, which would later become the Vietnam War:
“ I have never felt that we should send American soldiers to the Continent of Asia, which, of course, included China proper and Indo-China, simply because we are so outnumbered in fighting a land war on the Continent of Asia that it would bring about complete exhaustion even if we were able to win.... So today, as since 1947 in Europe and 1950 in Asia, we are really trying to arm the world against Communist Russia, or at least furnish all the assistance which can be of use to them in opposing Communism.
Is this policy of uniting the free world against Communism in time of peace going to be a practical long-term policy? I have always been a skeptic on the subject of the military practicability of NATO.... I have always felt that we should not attempt to fight Russia on the ground on the Continent of Europe any more than we should attempt to fight China on the Continent of Asia.[
Death and legacy[edit]
In early 1953, Taft began to feel pain in his hips, and after a painful golf outing with President Eisenhower in April 1953 he entered Walter Reed Hospital for initial tests which led doctors to suspect a tumor or arthritis.[44] On May 26 he entered Holmes Hospital in Cincinnati for more extensive tests.[45] The doctors there discovered nodules on his forehead and abdomen, and after doing biopsies of samples of the nodules, found that they were malignant.[46] On June 7, he entered New York Hospital for more tests and treatment; to keep the news that he might have cancer a secret he registered under the assumed name "Howard Roberts, Jr.".[47]
His doctors there agreed with the diagnosis of cancer, but disagreed as to the source of the primary tumor and method of treatment. Some of his doctors advocated exploratory surgery to keep the malignancy from spreading, while other doctors thought the tumors had spread too far, were inoperable, and recommended x-ray therapy to keep him comfortable.[48] After his death, an autopsy determined that Taft had been stricken with pancreatic cancer, which had quickly reached metastasis and spread throughout his body.[49]
On June 10, 1953, Taft transferred his duties as Senate Majority Leader to Senator William F. Knowland of California. He did not resign his Senate seat and told reporters that he expected to recover and return to work.[50] However, his condition rapidly worsened, and Taft returned to New York Hospital for surgery on July 4 during a Senate recess.
The surgery "did not take long, for the doctors quickly discovered cancer everywhere...there was no longer any doubt" that his condition was terminal.[51] He died at New York Hospital on July 31, following a final brain hemorrhage just hours after his wife's final visit.[49] [52] His body lay in state in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol, where thousands of mourners offered their respects at his coffin.[53]
On August 3, 1953, a memorial service was held in the rotunda; in addition to his family the service was attended by Eisenhower, Vice-President Nixon, the cabinet, members of the Supreme Court, and Taft's congressional colleagues. Following the service his body was flown to Cincinnati, where he was buried in a private ceremony at Indian Hill Episcopal Church Cemetery.[53]
In 1957, a committee led by Senator John F. Kennedy selected Taft as one of five great senators whose portraits would adorn the President's Room off the Senate floor. Kennedy would feature him in Profiles in Courage, and Taft continues to be regarded by historians as one of the most powerful senators of the 20th century
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_-HDuxV7T4