William Howard Taft
Beverly, MA, September 21, 1912
Taft on WH Stationary Discusses Appointments of Brigadier Generals
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WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, Typed Letter Signed, to Charles A. Ricks, September 21, 1912, Beverly, Massachusetts. On "The White House" stationery. 1 p., 7" x 9". Light toning; very good

In this brief letter, President Taft writes to old friend Charles A. Ricks about upcoming appointments of brigadier generals. Confessing he does not know who will be appointed, he tells Ricks he has asked Detroit railway tycoon Charles M. Swift (1854-1929) and Cleveland attorney James H. Hoyt (1850-1917) to visit him in Washington.

Taft wrote this letter during his last summer in Beverly, Massachusetts, where he maintained a summer White House to escape the heat of Washington. There, in the summers of 1909 and 1910, Taft and his wife lived in Stetson Hall, and he had offices at another location in Beverly. In 1911 and 1912, they spent the summers at Parramatta, an eighteen-room cottage and the former estate of a Salem and Boston merchant. Taft left Beverly for the last time on October 26, 1912. Ten days later, he lost his reelection bid to Woodrow Wilson in a three-way race that included former President Theodore Roosevelt, who divided Republican support with the incumbent Taft. In the Electoral College, Taft carried only the states of Vermont and Utah and Roosevelt carried six states, allowing Wilson to win a landslide electoral victory with forty states.

Complete Transcript
Beverly, Massachusetts,
September 21, 1912.
My dear Charley:
I have your letter of September 17th. I have written letters to Charley Swift and to James H. Hoyt, inviting them to come and see me in Washington
I don't know who will be the appointees to the vacancies occurring in the brigadier-generalships this fall and winter.
Sincerely yours,
Wm H Taft
Charles A. Ricks, Esquire,
G. C. Kuhlman Car Company,
Cleveland, Ohio.


William Howard Taft (1857-1930) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and graduated from Yale College in 1878. He received a bachelor of laws degree in 1880 from Cincinnati Law School. After gaining admission to the bar, Taft worked on the Cincinnati Commercial newspaper full time, covering local courts. After a brief stint as an assistant prosecutor, Taft was appointed to the Superior Court of Cincinnati in 1887. In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison appointed him as Solicitor General of the United States, a position he held until Harrison appointed him to the United States Court of Appeals, where he served from 1892 to 1900. He was Governor-General of the Philippines from 1901 to 1903, then Secretary of War under President Theodore Roosevelt from 1904 to 1908. In 1908, he was elected President of the United States as a Republican over Democrat William Jennings Bryan. After his defeat in the three-way election of 1912, Taft joined the faculty of the Yale Law School from 1913 to 1921, when President Warren G. Harding appointed him as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, a position he held until his death nine years later.

Charles Atwater Ricks (1868-1914) was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, the son of U.S. District Judge Augustus J. Ricks and Emma Atwater Ricks. The younger Ricks attended Kenyon Military Academy and Kenyon College. In 1897, he married Margaret Trowbridge. After working in banks in Massillon, Ohio, he moved to Cleveland in 1890, where he became an auditor and traveling salesman for Standard Oil Company, rising to manager of the Cleveland station in 1896. In 1900, he organized the G. C. Kuhlman Car Company, which built electric and steam railway cars, serving as its secretary and treasurer.

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7" x 9"