Friends, Romans . . .

Having concluded one of the year's daffiest pieces of genealogical research, the Taft publicity committee, headed .by L. Richard Guy lay, last week presented the U.S. voters with the dope on its candidate's blood lines. After noting that one of his ancestors (Francis Cooke) arrived on the Mayflower, and touching lightly on the political successes of the last three generations of Tafts, the committee's press release--entitled "Bob Taft's Heritage of Public Service"--delves confidently into the more distant past:

"Among the ancestors of Senator Taft beyond the generations . . . above, we find four Magna Carta sureties, as well as King John, who granted the Charter. Numerous kings of England, Scotland,

Ireland,* France and Spain and other countries appear in the family tree, including such personages as William the Conqueror and Charlemagne. The Senator may have inherited his ability to speak convincingly from an ancestor of almost two millenniums ago, Mark Antony."

* There were hundreds of kings in Ireland, but (because the credentials committees of the time could not agree) there never was A king of Ireland, unless the Senator's friends count those who were also kings of England--which is not a politically prudent thing to do.

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