The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism

by Doris Kearns Goodwin,
The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 10, 2013

In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt made good on his promise not to seek reelection and hand-picked William Howard Taft, his secretary of war, as his successor. The two men had met decades earlier, when Roosevelt was head of the Civil Service Commission and Taft served as solicitor general of the United States. Through the years, Taft observed, their relationship became "one of close and sweet intimacy." Convinced that Taft shared his progressive agenda - regulation of corporations and railroads, a more equitable distribution of wealth, protection of the rights of workers, and conservation of natural resources - Roosevelt cajoled and corralled Republicans to nominate him and worked tirelessly to help him defeat William Jennings Bryan in the general election.