Decency between politicians, even when the campaign rhetoric was ugly
May 1918. Blackstone Hotel
Taft checks in and the clerk mentions Roosevelt is eating dinner there. The two hadn't spoken in six years.
They ran against each other in 1912, splitting the Republican Party and handing the White House to Woodrow Wilson. The friendship was dead.
Taft walked into the dining room anyway.
Roosevelt's friends saw him coming and went silent. He turned around. Taft was smiling.
Roosevelt jumped up and bear-hugged the man he had once called a "Fathead" with "Brains of a guinea pig".
The dining room stood up and applauded. Strangers who had read about the feud for years watched it end in real time.
Eight months later, Roosevelt died.
At the funeral, Taft stood alone and wept.
He later told Roosevelt's sister: "Had he died in a hostile state of mind toward me, I would have mourned the fact all my life. I loved him always and cherish his memory."
Taft checks in and the clerk mentions Roosevelt is eating dinner there. The two hadn't spoken in six years.
They ran against each other in 1912, splitting the Republican Party and handing the White House to Woodrow Wilson. The friendship was dead.
Taft walked into the dining room anyway.
Roosevelt's friends saw him coming and went silent. He turned around. Taft was smiling.
Roosevelt jumped up and bear-hugged the man he had once called a "Fathead" with "Brains of a guinea pig".
The dining room stood up and applauded. Strangers who had read about the feud for years watched it end in real time.
Eight months later, Roosevelt died.
At the funeral, Taft stood alone and wept.
He later told Roosevelt's sister: "Had he died in a hostile state of mind toward me, I would have mourned the fact all my life. I loved him always and cherish his memory."
