When I first met Big Bill Taft  I thought he was the finest tonic against the blues in all broad America.
We had a great game of golf together at Augusta, Georgia, and I took the liberty of beating the President by two holes. We must have cut a pretty comic figure on the links together, he with his tremendous bulk and me with my small stature. He may have improved his golf game since these days but when we had our famous match he was most erratic. If he connected with the ball he swiped it a long distance but my
recollection is that oftener than not he shifted a large part of the links without propelling the pill very far.
but he smiled all the time; in fact I don't think I have ever met a man with so dominating a smile. He simply exuded geniality. As Chief Justice of the Supreme Court he may have settled down to a more sombre bearing and in that case I shall not visit him while he is on duty "on the bench" because i would not like my memories of him to be other than those of a great big fat laughing boy making the best of everything in this best of possible worlds.
    A special friend of mine in London knew "Bill" well when he was Governor General of the Philippine islands after the Spanish America war. He assures me without a doubt Mr. Taft was the most unpopular   man in the Islands among his own people but the most popular with the Philippinos ... whom he persisted on calling his "Little Brown Brothers."  At that time the Americans in the islands had not much use for the natives on account of certain traits in their character..since, I am told, happily eradicated ..and a song which the former were wont to sing lustily in Manila finished up with these two lines..

    Well, I can't imagine Big Bill being anything else to anybody... with the exception, perhaps, of those he has to decide against in his official capacity as judge..but a jolly big brother. Here is a story about the ex-president which I am assured is true and if it's not true it ought to be. It made me smile when I heard it from one of Bill's own old friends. Away back in the early nineties Mr. Roosevelt sent Taft to Rome to confer with the existing Pope regarding some important religious question affecting the Philippine Islands. He was invited to attend some big function at St. Peter's Cathedral ands, to his dismay, found upon arrival that everybody was in evening dress..a strict rule observed for certain Roman ceremonies even at high noon. The American envoy was politely told that he could not enter unless he was suitably attired in orthodox fashion. Mr. Taft realized that he would not have time to go to his hotel and change so he walked into the street  and rolled heavily into the nearest restaurant with the idea of borrowing a dress suit
from on of the waiters. Finding a waiter of anything like Bill's majestic proportions must have seemed rather a forlorn hope. But the gods of chance were this stoutly backing the stout one. There was a monstrous waiter in the restaurant. Out came a fat "wad" and a deal was made on the spot. The waiter and the future President retired for a few minutes and before the function at St. Peter's had progressed very far Mr. Taft arrived back and was duly "passed in."  The fact that the sleeves were a few inches too short, that the waistcoat showed signs here and there of 'ministrone'" and that a serious and imminent strain was put on the buttons of the commandeered trousers mattered not one little bit to the genial William Howard; he had been faced with a sudden problem and had overcome it with as sudden action. I would like to see "Bill" in one of my kilts!