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the Lower East Side, making money through prostitution, card games, blackjacking services, burglary and pick pocketing. Irish toughs ruled the streets around Five Points and were locked in a continual war with Italian, German and Jewish gangs.
    It was into this cauldron of greed, crime, corruption and power that Captain Archibald Butt escorted William Howard Taft to his first foray as President into New York in March of 1909.
     
    It had been just a year since Archie had come to Washington. He never foresaw how close he would become to Roosevelt or the essential position he would assume in the White House. Archie did not anticipate finding himself in the same intimate role with Taft as he did with Roosevelt. For one, what drew he and Roosevelt together was their common love for athletics and manly competition. When William Howard Taft took office he weighed 320 pounds. Archie wrote of Taft, “He moves very slowly, and I defy anyone in the world to hurry him.” Archie did not believe he would be sharing a sporting relationship with the new President.
    As it turned out, Archie was wrong. Taft proved to be a decent horseman – he and Archie would go riding at least three times a week – and an avid golfer. Many believed Taft was more dedicated to his golf game than his Presidency.
    Archie soon grew as close to the new President as he was with the old. Where he was a companion to Roosevelt, he became an all-purpose friend, attendant, escort and confidant to Taft.
    They traveled to New York by train on the morning of March 19, a little more than two weeks after the inauguration. That first evening in New York, Taft gave a speech to sixteen hundred of his fellow Yale alumni at the Waldorf-Astoria . It was an ill-prepared, boring talk. Despite the uninspiring speech, people were anxious to shake the hand of the new President. A reception line was organized. Archie stood a step behind Taft, next to John Wilkie, the Chief of the Secret Service, both keeping a watchful eye toward the President. “For some reason,” Wilkie said to Archie, “the personality of Roosevelt kept away cranks and frightened away anarchists, but the personality of Mr. Taft is that which always seems to invite attacks.” With that, Wilkie and Archie noticed an awkward, uncomfortable man invade Taft’s space. Their protective instincts sprang alert, only to retreat when they saw Taft warmly grasp the man’s hand.
    “ And what are you up to these days, Jack?” Taft said.
    “ Real estate, Mr. President. And we’re looking for investors. Any interest?”
    Taft laughed a big barrel laugh. “Anything the Astors do is bound to be successful. Good luck with it.”
    “ Thank you, sir,” Astor said, then stepped to Archie. “Captain Butt,” Astor saluted. “Lieutenant Colonel John Jacob Astor, Cuba, 1898-99.”
    Archie saluted back. “A pleasure, Colonel Astor. Your reputation as a soldier precedes you.”
    “ Really? I didn’t exactly see bloody combat. I mainly financed my battalion and loaned them my yacht.”
    “ You did your job as a patriot, sir, and that steads you well in my book.”
    “ Thank you, Captain.” Astor puffed his chest out then saluted again.
     
    The next morning Taft had a meeting scheduled at the Morgan library. He had known J. Pierpont Morgan for some time and was always impressed by his insight into markets and money. Every time the men met, Morgan lobbied for a Federal Reserve System that would act much like a central bank. Morgan felt that with such a federal system, speculative bubbles, like the one that cause the Panic of ’07, could be avoided.
    Though Taft agreed with many of Morgan’s ideas, he also realized it would be bad politics to be seen too often with the country’s most controversial face of capitalism. So that morning Taft, accompanied only by Archie and two secret service men, slipped from the residence of Henry Taft, the President’s brother, and crossed Manhattan to the Morgan Library.
    A cold