Taft Robert a Robert Alphonso (1 results)
Published by Doubleday, Garden City, NY, 1951
- Hardcover
- First Edition
- Signed
Seller: Ground Zero Books, Ltd., Silver Spring, MD, U.S.A.Ground Zero Books, Ltd.
Contact seller5-star sellerHardcover. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Fair. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Format is approximately 5.5 inches by 8 inches. 127, [1] pages. Footnotes. DJ worn and chipped, DJ in plastic sleeve, bottom of front endpaper torn off & pencil erasure. Signed by the author on the fep. Major work by a leading conser…vative Republican and Presidential aspirant. Robert Alphonso Taft Sr. (September 8, 1889 - July 31, 1953) was an American politician, lawyer, and scion of the Republican Party's Taft family. Taft represented Ohio in the United States Senate, briefly served as Senate Majority Leader, and was a leader of the conservative coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats who prevented expansion of the New Deal. Often referred to as "Mr. Republican", he co-sponsored the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which banned closed shops, created the concept of right-to-work states, and regulated other labor practices. He was the elder son of William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States and 10th Chief Justice of the United States. Taft served in the Ohio House of Representatives from 1921 to 1931 and in the Ohio Senate from 1931 to 1933. After winning election to the Senate in 1938 over incumbent Democrat Robert J. Bulkley, Taft repeatedly sought the Republican presidential nomination. Taft again sought the presidential nomination a third time in 1952. However, Dewey and other moderates convinced General Dwight D. Eisenhower to enter the race, and Eisenhower narrowly prevailed at the 1952 Republican National Convention and went on to win the 1952 presidential election. Taft was elected Senate Majority Leader in 1953 but died of pancreatic cancer later that year. From a reviewer's comments found on the Internet: "A Foreign Policy for Americans" was published in 1951, when Taft was the leading representative of (what is now called) "the Old Right" in Congress and seen as a frontrunner for the GOP's presidential nomination the following year. By then, he had already built his reputation as an anti-interventionist by opposing American entry into WWII as well as Lend-Lease and other support for the combatant nations. By the time of this book, Taft was grappling with the onset of the Cold War, the need to address the 'Russian menace'" and the proper role of America in international pacts and organizations. On the whole, his position is much more nuanced than the caricature painted of isolationists today. On page 87, for example, he writes "I supported the bills for the arming of Greece and Turkey. I am quite willing to support arms aid to Great Britain and France to the extent that they are not able to arm themselves, although the providing of such arms should be a first call on their own budgets, and arms aid should not be provided by the United States simply to prevent some slight reduction in their civilian standard of living." What does "A Foreign Policy for Americans" offer the contemporary reader? After all, the Soviet Union is gone and the world picture has changed dramatically since 1951. For one thing, it's important to know that the 'isolationist' charge is nothing new, and that, as the first few chapters of this book show, the struggle between the executive and legislative branches for control of war and foreign policy has deep roots in American history. Principled defenders of anti-interventionism need to know their history. While not necessarily filled with prose to fuel the fires of a libertarian's heart three-score years after it was written, "A Foreign Policy for Americans" is still a quick and insightful read.