No American President loved Canada more than Republican William Howard Taft. He kept a summer home in Quebec throughout his adult life, traveled to our nation frequently after he left the White House (once even speaking at the dedication of the Montreal statue of Father of Confederation Sir George-Étienne Cartier) and even delivering lectures at the University of Toronto.
On this date in 1915 he granted an interview to reporter in Ontario’s capital city the previous day. The former President, who was defeated by Woodrow Wilson in 1912, told the journalist he had no interest in ever returning to politics.
“Oh no, the Progressive party is now dead, and I have no desire to help to disinter it. We entered the cemetery together, and in death we do not part, he said, adding that he also had not given up on the Republican party he had led. "It is going along all right, and keeping the fires going. Some one will appear at the proper time to represent it."
Luckily for his country (and Mr. Taft) that when the next Republican President took office, a man from Ohio, which was also Taft’s home state, appointed the former President Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.