Posted on 09/08/2022 4:44:44 PM PDT by Fiji Hill
Robert Alphonso Taft, Sr. (September 8, 1889 – July 31, 1953), son of President William Howard Taft, was a leading Republican Senator (1938–53) and known as "Mr. Republican". He was a leader of the Conservative Coalition, working with other Northern Republicans and some Southern Democrats to control Congress on most domestic issues (aside from civil rights, which the conservative Republicans supported while the Boll Weevils opposed). Little major legislation passed the Senate against his objections.
His crowning achievement was writing and passing the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 over President Truman's veto. It balanced the interests of unions, management and the public.
(Excerpt) Read more at conservapedia.com ...
When he became Senate Majority Leader in 1953, and President Eisenhower's "first mate," he began to shepherd the president's legislation through the Senate only to be felled by cancer after only a few months. Taft remains one of the great heroes of American conservatism.
Robert A Taft was both an honest and moral man who really tried to take principled stands on public issues. For that he was deeply dislike by many ‘practical’ politicians in his own party.
My favorite story about Robert Taft is from when he first arrived to Harvard Law School the spring his father took office of the President. He was quizzed at a party by a Brahman woman who wanted to confirm his family credentials:
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“Ohio.”
“Do you go there for the holidays?”
“No. The family is in Washington now.”
“What does your father do?”
“He has a government job.”
“Where does he live?”
“On Pennsylvania Avenue.”
The lack of interest in this post about a man who really was a patriot, and believed he neither had to wave the flag, wear a uniform or be consumed with the desire to order foreigners around to be so is a sobering and damning commentary about people who call themselves conservatives.
I have occasionally attended Republican and conservative conferences wearing a Taft button from his 1952 presidential campaign. One simply reads “Taft” in big block letters. Another reads “Win with Taft,” a rejoinder to the Me-Toos (as RINOs were called at the time) and their slogan “Taft can’t win.” Another reads, “I like Ike, but I’ll take Taft.”
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