Presidents and First Ladies Trivia

[David Lockmiller]

(06-20-2024 01:29 PM)Anita Wrote:  You nailed it Rob!

Nellie Taft made a permanent mark in history by becoming the first First Lady to ride in the Inaugural Parade with her husband, following the swearing-in ceremony. Many newspapers at the time considered it a symbol of what they assumed to be her support of full suffrage for women. Against the advice of traditionalists, she had decided she would make the ride several days earlier when she learned that outgoing President Roosevelt was opting out of the tradition to accompany his successor back to the White House. http://archive.firstladies.org/biographi...ography=27

Nellie Taft maintained a seemingly impossible ambition. Sparked by a visit to the Hayes White House as a teenager, Nellie Taft had determined as a young woman that, if she married it would be to a man who could be President. She did not believe she could be both married and work as a writer or musician, which were her career ambitions. In Taft she found her opportunity, despite his ambition to be Chief Justice.

During their life in Washington when he served as Solicitor-General (1890), Nellie Taft did all she could to forward her husband's career through social connections, but she feared he was on a judicial rather than executive track. This was further confirmed when he accepted the offer of President Benjamin Harrison to serve as Federal Circuit Court Judge (1892-1900).

After the Spanish-American War, however, when President William McKinley offered Taft the position of Governor-General (1900-1903) of the recently acquired Philippine Islands, Nellie Taft urged his acceptance and eagerly moved with her family to Manila. There she started a nutritional program for infants "Drop of Milk". She upset the American military establishment by breaking their previous code of refusing native peoples invitations to social events. Nellie Taft made a concerted effort to learn the language and culture of the various regions of the islands, and showed a respect towards the people of the Philippines that was unheard of from an Anglo-Saxon woman.

She also eagerly urged Taft to accept the offer of President Theodore Roosevelt to become his War Secretary (1904-1909). [S]he threw her energies entirely into helping secure Roosevelt's support for Taft as the Republican presidential candidate in 1908.

In early 1908, Nellie Taft held two unprecedented meetings with President Roosevelt, confronting him on his true motives for suggesting that he would support Taft over the other potential candidates. Nellie Taft firmly asserted in private letters that Roosevelt wanted another term but that his rash statement on election night 1904 in which he declared that he would not run again held him back. She believed it was a technicality and that if there was a popular groundswell for his re-nomination that he would abandon his support of Taft and accept the draft as candidate.

Nellie Taft was more thoroughly involved in the political elements of her husband's 1908 campaign than she was at any other point in his career. In dozens of letters, she advised him on how to position himself, sometimes down to what words to use, so that he would be seen as supporting some of Roosevelt's popular policies yet also standing on his own, apart from Roosevelt. Her role was largely hidden from the public, conducted instead through private correspondence or in closed-door meetings.

Throughout the Republican Convention in June of 1908, Nellie Taft and her husband kept in close contact with their representatives there; she was certain a stampede for Roosevelt would lead to his spontaneous nomination, instead of it coming to Taft.

Final note: During the primary and then general election, she feared that the press would learn that she enjoyed playing poker and other card games for money, even on Sundays, and that it might be considered a strike against her husband by those more religious voters who scorned on any type of gambling.