The truth is, the whole administration under Roosevelt was demoralized by the system of dealing directly with subordinates. It was... obviated in the State Department and the War Department under [Secretary of State Elihu] Root and me [Taft was the Secretary of War], because we simply ignored the interference and went on as we chose.... The subordinates gained nothing by his assumption of authority, but it was not so in the other departments.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. The fact is to be the more striking when... it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have an important part in developing the modern constitutional rights.... The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I thank those who were good enough to say something pleasant about the incoming administration, for I am glad to get it now. I hea...rd of the man who went into office with a majority and went out with unanimity.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The laboring man and the trade-unionist, if I understand him, asks only equality before the law. Class legislation and unequal pri...vilege, though expressly in his favor, will in the end work no benefit to him or to society.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is not impossible, of course, after such an administration as Roosevelt's and after the change in method that I could not but a...dapt in view of my different way of looking at things, that questions should arise as to whether I should go back on the principles of the Roosevelt administration.... I have a government of limited power under a Constitution, and we have got to work out our problems on the basis of law. Now, if that is reactionary, then I am a reactionary.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I do not know much about politics, but I am trying to do the best I can with this administration until the time shall come for me ...to turn it over to somebody else.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I don't know whither we are drifting, but I do know where every real thinking patriot will stand in the end, and that's by the Con...stitution.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I cannot exaggerate the waste of the President's time and the consumption of his nervous vitality involved in listening to congres...smen's intercession as to local appointments. Why should the President have to have his time taken up in a discussion over ... who shall be the postmistress of Devil's Lake, in North Dakota? How should he be able to know ... who is best fitted to fill such a place?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He [Roosevelt] has made some speeches that indicate that he is going quite beyond anything that he advocated when he was in the Wh...ite House, and has proposed a program which is absolutely impossible to carry out except by a revision of the Constitution.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »