Chương 137: William Howard Taft

Arthur followed an old butler in a tailcoat through a corridor covered with heavy Persian carpets.

The walls on both sides of the corridor are covered with oil portraits of past presidents and Supreme Court justices.

The butler stopped in front of a carved walnut double door, knocked gently, and then pushed it open a crack.

"Sir, Mr. Kennedy has arrived."

"Let him in." A deep, slightly weak voice came from inside the door.

Arthur took a deep breath and strode into the spacious private study.

The study was filled with the smells of cigars with tangerine peel and old book covers.

The huge fireplace crackled with the burning of fine oak.

Seated in an extremely large leather armchair by the fireplace is the current Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, the only person in U. S. history to have served as both President and Chief Justice.

William Howard Taft.

At this time, Taft was already 7, 200 years old. His body was extremely bloated and huge, but his face looked very haggard.

He had a wool blanket over his legs and was holding yesterday's copy of the New York Herald in his hand.

"Come and sit down, young man."

Taft didn't get up, but simply raised his hand slightly, pointing to another chair opposite the fireplace.

Arthur took off his black coat and sat down in the chair. He sat upright, his gaze calmly fixed on the old man who had once stood at the pinnacle of power on this continent.

"I received a telegram from Elizabeth."

Taft spoke slowly, his voice weak but still carrying the authority of someone who had long held a high position.

"In her telegram, she said that a key Harrison ally in New York was facing some kind of 'unsavory' administrative trouble. She wanted me to meet with you in person."

Taft tossed the newspaper he was holding onto the small round table beside him; the front page of the newspaper featured the sensational "Sixteen Tons" that had swept the East Coast.

"I read your article. The writing is very sharp, like a poisoned dagger."

Taft looked at Arthur, a glint of shrewdness flashing beneath his heavy eye bags.

"You turned the Tammany Irish Association upside down in New York, doing the Republicans a huge favor. You should be staying in New York enjoying the flowers and applause, or playing golf on Long Island."

"But you went to an abandoned mine in Pennsylvania and wrote this kind of inflammatory article that is enough to enrage the entire Wall Street and industry."

Taft asked in an almost accusatory tone, "What do you want to do, Mr. Kennedy? Are you trying to start a revolution in America?"

Faced with the Supreme Court's questioning, Arthur did not back down in the slightest.

He took a polished brass coin from his pocket and gently placed it on the small oak round table between the two of them.

"Your Excellency Chief Justice, if you believe that recording the truth is inciting revolution, then there may be serious problems with this country's legal system." Arthur's voice was calm and cold.

"I went to Scranton to handle my mother's funeral arrangements. There, I saw a legitimate mining company paying its miners with this scrap metal."

"Then the company declared the tokens invalid during its bankruptcy proceedings, but used federally protected dollar debt to kick them out of their tattered tents."

Arthur looked Taft straight into his eyes: "I wrote Sixteen Tons not to incite revolution. I was simply showing the highest levels of power in this country a perfectly closed loop of legal robbery."

"And the day after I published this article, my bank accounts in New York were completely frozen by some extremely covert administrative means."

"There was no court summons, no public arrest warrant, just a statement of compliance with temporary freeze regulations."

Arthur gave a cold laugh.

"A certain power in Washington is using extremely despicable means to cut off my funding, trying to strangle me halfway through with hunger and poverty."

Taft stared at the brass token on the table, remaining silent for a moment. His cloudy yet sharp eyes swept across Arthur's face.

"You don't know who issued the freeze order?" Taft suddenly asked.

Arthur shook his head: "There's no need to know which hand it is. It could be a hawk in the Department of Justice, or it could be a bureaucrat in the Treasury Department who's been fed by Wall Street."

"Within this country's administrative machinery, there are countless back channels that can bypass due process of justice. All I know is that this machine has gone out of control."

Taft sighed deeply. He leaned back in his wide chair, looking as if he had aged considerably in an instant.

"You're clever, young man. You know how to avoid direct accusations and instead point the finger at the corruption of the entire system." Taft's voice deepened.

"You're right, there are many secret passages. Since the World War, the executive branch has expanded too quickly. Especially those investigative agencies established to 'protect federal security'—" Taft did not name Hoover. But as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he was well aware of the shady dealings of the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Investigation.

During his presidency, government intervention in business tycoons was transparent, unlike now, where secret police tactics are used against a writer.

"But that's the price you pay for speaking out in the newspapers," Taft said, his tone hardening.

"Do you think you can challenge the entire credit and debt system upon which America depends for survival with just a pen? I know you used the term 'Great Depression,' but in my view, it's just a natural economic ebb, a self-purification of the market."

"Although the process is painful, we must uphold the dignity of the law and the inviolability of property rights."

"If we allow this angry bull to run rampant in the china shop, the mob at the bottom will tear apart the constitutionally established order."

As Arthur listened to the Republican elder's classic "free market and conservatism" rhetoric, a deeply sarcastic smirk curled at the corner of his mouth.

This was the prevailing consensus among Washington and even the entire American elite at the time. They watched as millions starved and became homeless, yet they clung to those rigid dogmas and insisted on a policy of non-intervention.

"The market's self-purification?"

Arthur's voice became somewhat harsh.

"Sir, I just came from the steel graveyard in Bethlehem. On the way, I saw veterans scavenging for food in the mud along the Anacostia River. Are they the impurities you speak of that need to be 'purified'?"

Arthur stood up and looked intently at the former president sitting in the armchair.

He decided to launch into a tirade in front of this old American political veteran.

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