Of course if it shall turn out that the most thorough excavation will not disclose the cause we must be content, but as long as there remains unexcavated any portion of the mud and debris within the wreck or its neighborhood from which…
Bill Taft
The Public Record
William Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States, serving from 1909 to 1913. A member of the Republican Party, he was known for his trust-busting policies and efforts to promote international trade. After his presidency, Taft continued to serve the nation as the 10th Chief Justice of the United States from 1921 until his death in 1930, making him the only person to have held both the presidency and the chief justiceship. His tenure as Chief Justice was marked by a commitment to judicial restraint and the rule of law.
The Navy Department has no objection to the proposed salvage operations, but the Department of State holds the view that these wrecks are public property of the United States, which may be alienated only by an act of Congress or by a…
The matter is therefore submitted to the Congress in accordance with the recommendation of the Acting Secretary of State, with a view to its considering whether the President shall be authorized to relinquish to Cuba all right and claim of…
The issue is not now whether we ought originally to have begun this investigation, but it is whether, having expended a very large part of the necessary amount to do the full work, we ought to break it off for lack of a comparatively small…
It appears that a Norwegian company has applied to the Cuban Government for permission to raise these wrecks and that before considering the proposition the Cuban Government desires to receive the views of the United States in regard…
I earnestly hope that Congress will take immediate action in this regard, as recommended by the Secretary of War.
But there is another, and a very important, reason why the bill ought not to become a law, and that is that in many instances it adopts the principle, rarely permitted in any revenue system, on whatever theory constructed, by which the…
This language is so sweeping that it might be made to cover almost 150 articles used in agriculture, which would affect many sections of the present tariff, and lead to the most injurious uncertainty.
The bill is so carelessly drawn that it would inevitably lead to the greatest uncertainty as to what articles are or are not covered by its various provisions.
Another clause that calls for comment is in the leather paragraph, which reads as follows: \Leather cut into shoe uppers or vamps or other forms suitable for conversion into manufactured articles.\
The truth is that the language of the act is so ambiguous and possibly all-embracing that it is impracticable for the Treasury Department to give an exact estimate as to the diminution in revenue which will follow its passage.
This imposes a penalty on the domestic labor of cutting and would transfer half the process in the industry of shoemaking and glove making to foreign countries.
The same reasons which impelled me to decline to sign the wool bill control me in this case.
I withhold my approval from this bill, therefore, for the reasons, first, because it should not be considered until the Tariff Board shall make report upon the schedules it affects; second, because the bill is so loosely drawn as to …
This would impose a heavy burden on the administrative branch of the Government, create disastrous uncertainty in commercial circles, and lead to a burdensome amount of litigation.
The danger is not so much that the class of users in whose favor the classification purports to be made will receive more benefit than the framers of the law may have intended, but it is that many who do not belong to the class intended to…
Nothing, however, halts business and interferes with the course of prosperity so much as the threatened revision of the tariff.
I shall not hesitate to invite the attention of Congress to this fact and to the necessity for action predicated thereon.
I have always regarded this language as fixing the proper measure of protection at the ascertained difference between the cost of production at home and that abroad.
If I fail to guard as far as I can the industries of the country to the extent of giving them the benefit of a living measure of protection, and business disaster ensues, I shall not be discharging my duty.
Certainly we should proceed prudently in dealing with them upon the basis of ascertained facts rather than hastily and without knowledge to make a reduction of the tariff to satisfy a popular desire.
If I fail to recommend the reduction of excessive duties to this extent, I shall fail in my duty to the consuming public.
If I sign this joint resolution, I do not see how I can escape responsibility for the judicial recall of the Arizona constitution.
No honest, clear-headed man, however great a lover of popular government, can deny that the unbridled expression of the majority of a community converted hastily into law or action would sometimes make a government tyrannical and cruel.





