Cigar, William Howard Taft, 1908

The tradition of attaching a decorative band to individual cigars began in Cuba possibly as early as the 1830s. Patriotic images and political portraits quickly became popular cigar band art in the United States. William Howard Taft, twice the Republican presidential nominee, had been pictured on cigar bands since the 1890s when he served as a federal judge. During the 1908 campaign both Taft and his Democratic opponent William Jennings Bryan were featured on cigar bands possibly with the idea that merchants would sell the “competing” cigars side by side. Once an avid cigar smoker, Taft quit the habit while he was president.

Taft won his first national campaign in 1908 as the hand-picked successor to Republican president Theodore Roosevelt. That year he defeated two opponents both of whom were running for the third time. Second-place finisher Democrat William Jennings Bryan suffered the worst defeat of his three attempts to win the White House and Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs came in third. Four years later, in his 1912 bid for re-election, President Taft was the third-place finisher losing to both the Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson and former president Theodore Roosevelt who ran on the Progressive Party ticket. However, Taft again finished ahead of Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs. Although Debs finished last in this his fourth presidential campaign, he received just under six percent of the popular vote, the highest percentage of his five attempts to win the White House.