This book is a collection of SOME of the works of William Howard Taft but the title is quite misleading, as it does NOT include State of the Union Addresses. Also the author has not taken the time or effort to provide the reader / researcher with an INDEX, which, of course, means that one has to read the entire collection to find references to a particular subject matter. In short, this book is merely a reprinting of some of Taft's speeches and addresses and nothing more!

This collection of Taft's public papers is the first such endeavor, and a praiseworthy one. Readers looking for analysis won't find it here any more than any other "letters of" or "papers of" any other historical figure.

What they will find is William Howard Taft in his own words. The Taft papers at the Library of Congress number into the tens of thousands, and as such are useful only to serious researchers. The student or casual reader of the Taft era will benefit enormously from David Burton's collection of Taft's public papers.

Taft was a proficient and thorough speech writer, and one can follow his era precisely according to this collection. History shall benefit tremendously from these volumes.

A future edition will make available State addresses and, one hopes, a full and final index.