Taft’s mother, who took an active and very intelligent interest in her son’s work and who sent him letters by nearly every mail which were filled with entertaining and accurate comment on Philippine affairs, took the suggestion of his being a Presidential possibility quite seriously. And she did not at all approve of it. Having seen a number of press notices about it she sat down and wrote him a long letter in which she discussed with measured arguments the wisdom of his keeping out of politics. At that time the idea appealed to nothing in him except his sense of humour. He wrote to his brother Charles: “To me such a discussion has for its chief feature the element of humour. The idea that a man who has issued injunctions against labour unions, almost by the bushel, who has sent at least ten or a dozen violent labour agitators to jail, and who is known as one of the worst judges for the maintenance of government by injunction, could ever be a successful candidate on a Presidential ticket, strikes me as intensely ludicrous; and had I the slightest ambition in that direction I hope that my good sense would bid me to suppress it.