12 | FORBES ASIA JUNE 2018
FORBES ASIA
FACT & COMMENT STEVE FORBES
him to be president instead.) He was ap-
pointed to an Ohio state judgeship in his
20s. So impressive was Tat that he was
considered for the high court in his early
30s; instead, he was appointed U.S. solicitor
general, where he won 16 of the 18 cases
he argued before
the Supreme Court.
His contemporaries
were struck by Tat’s
thoroughness and in-
tegrity. He went on to
a seat on the Court of
Appeals for the Sixth
Circuit. (During these
years, Tat became fast
friends with another
rising star, heodore
Roosevelt.)
President William
McKinley plucked a
reluctant Tat of the
bench and made him
the civil governor of
the newly acquired
former Spanish col-
ony, the Philippines.
It was a job fraught
with diiculties, as
the U.S. was waging
a nasty war against
independence-minded guerrillas. Tat
performed brilliantly, achieving genuine
popularity among the Filipino people.
Roosevelt, who became president when
McKinley was assassinated, then made
Tat his secretary of war, where Tat again
did well. In 1908 the immensely popular
Roosevelt anointed Tat as his successor,
a job Tat really didn’t want.
Eventually, however, TR wanted his
old job back. Tat’s political ineptitude as
president gave the Rough Rider plenty of
pretexts for a break, and he challenged Tat
for the 1912 GOP nomination. Tat won,
but TR then bolted and ran as an indepen-
dent. he split made for an easy Democratic
win, with Tat inishing a humiliating third.
Rosen argues persuasively that Tat’s
approach to the presidency was diamet-
rically opposed to Roosevelt’s.
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wanted, as long as it wasn’t absolutely and
explicitly forbidden by the Constitution;
Tat wouldn’t do something unless it wasclearly permitted by said document.
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Congress; Tat profoundly believed that do-
ing so undermined the separation of powers.
Despite Tat’s seemingly somnolent
approach to governing, some importantthings were accomplished. In fact, here,
as elsewhere, Tat was an efective executive.
Henry Stimson, who served under Presi-
dents Tat, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry
Truman as secretary of war and under Her-
bert Hoover as secretary of state, found
Tat to be, by far, the inest administrator.
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predecessor’s conservation eforts. he
truth: In four years Tat withdrew more
land for federal protection than Roosevelt
did in two terms.
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buster, eschewing TR’s rather idiosyn-
cratic deinition of “good” and “bad”
monopolies.
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issue: tarifs. Tat did and was pillo-
ried for the results, even though he was
the irst Republican chief executive to
achieve a reduction in tarifs, from an
average tax of 24% to 21%.
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with other countries to reduce barriers.He negotiated a free-trade agreement
with Canada, which our northern
neighbor refused to ratify. (his wasn’t
achieved until 1987.)
Tat took a political hit for refus-
ing to invade Mexico—without expresscongressional approval—during the
Mexican Revolution, in order to be ready
to protect American lives and prop-
erty there. (Tat’s successor, Woodrow
Wilson, did so, and the results were any-
thing but successful.)
Lesser but fun achievements include
being the irst president to throw out
the opening day pitch for baseball and
starting the tradition of the seventh-
inning stretch.
Tat inally achieved his Supreme
Court dream when Warren Harding
named him Chief Justice in 1921, the
only former president to achieve this
position. Here Tat was a dynamo. He
pushed through long-needed reforms of
the federal judiciary, making it, Rosen
argues, a truly equal branch of govern-
ment. He also got the High Court the
magniicent building it occupies today.
Rosen’s verdict: Tat was the most con-
sequential Chief Justice since his hero,
John Marshall.Tub custom-made for our portly 27th president.F GRANGER COLLECTION