WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT | As his doomed reelection campaign draws to an end, President Taft thanks John Wanamaker for his support

Property from the Collection of Elsie and Philip Sang

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT

TYPED LETTER SIGNED (WM H TAFT") AS TWENTY-SEVENTH PRESIDENT, TO JOHN WANAMAKER, WITH A LENGTHY AUTOGRAPH POSTSCRIPT

One page (8 7/8 x 6 7/8 in.; 223 x 175 mm) on a bifolium of blue-embossed White House letterhead, Washington, 28 October 1912, with original typed envelope; faint finger-soiling at edges, lightly creased at horizontal fold.

William Howard Taft was Theodore Roosevelt's Secretary of War and protégé, but when Teddy entered the 1912 presidential race as a third-party Progressive candidate, Taft's defeat was assured. Many voters in Taft's core constituency, fearful of a progressive Roosevelt presidency, choose to support Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Wilson handily beat Roosevelt in the Electoral College, 435 to 88; Taft, who carried only Vermont and Utah, finished with just 8.

Just eight days prior to the election, Taft sent a brief note of appreciation to John Wanamaker, Philadelphia's pioneering department-store merchant: "Thank you for your note of October 26th, and for the accompanying advance copy of your statement. I have noted it with appreciative interest."

Perhaps sensing that this typed missive was a little halfhearted—and perhaps also remembering that less than a year earlier he had dedicated the palatial Wanamaker Building—Taft appended an autograph postscript of greater length and feeling: "I have read what you say in the morning paper, I cannot conceive of any statement from any other source that will so rouse the business community as your favorable and illuminating statements."