The Importance of Sympathy in the White House

Taft learned from experience the enormous chemical value of sympathy in neutralizing the acid of hard feelings. A lady in Washington wrote Taft saying that I was most ungrateful since I declined to make her a happy woman as I could have done by a turn of my hand. When you get a letter like that, the first thing you do is to think how you can be severe with a person who is committed in impropriety or even been a little impertinent. If you are wise, you will put the letter in a drawer and lock the drawer. Take it out in the course of two days. This is just the course I took.