TLS signed “Wm. H. Taft,” two pages, 8 x 10.5, personal letterhead, July 13, 1919. Letter to the Hon. Howard Clark Hollister, whom President Taft had appointed as judge of the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. After discussing some political figures and family matters, Taft weighs in on President Woodrow Wilson's proposed League of Nations. In part: "The fight over the League of Nations is bitter, but I anticipate that the League will be adopted. I hope that only a few reservations will be required, which will be mild and which will not in any way prevent their acceptance by the other nations and not weaken the League. The personal and partisan bitterness which the Republican Senators have displayed toward Wilson, I don't think has helped the Republican party. The Senators I think hate me now nearly as much as they do Wilson. [In his own hand, Taft adds: "So indeed do all the Republican machine members."] While it is not entirely comfortable to be hated, it is better to be hated for pursuing the right course than it is to be despised for pursuing the wrong one." In fine condition. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope.
In 1915, Taft became the first president of the League to Enforce Peace, an organization that advocated the formation of an international coalition aimed at preventing war. The fruition of President Wilson's Fourteen Points plan similarly and more famously established the League of Nations at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, with the League's charter later incorporated into the conference's WWI-dissolving Treaty of Versailles. Taft's public support of the League was chastised by many of his fellow Republicans, and his inconsistent views on the Versailles reservations were rebuked by both parties. Wilson's opposition to any amendments or reservations of the treaty subsequently concluded with its final rejection on March 19, 1920.
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