Good-hearted William Howard Taft, the twenty-seventh President of the United States, was a tall, heavy, round man with wild wavy hair and a thick handlebar mustache. Sincerely religious, Taft was Unitarian by faith and lived a lifestyle devoid of tobacco and alcohol. He had an honesty and a good-natured simplicity that endeared him to others. His acute sense of loyalty forced him to always put the interests of his friends, family, and party above his own, which was not always the best course of action. Taft had a direct, no-nonsense approach to people and problems that made him an effective administrator. Capable as he was, however, he had no love for the Presidency. His was a legal mind, happiest when practicing law. The thing he desired most in his career was an appointment to the Supreme Court, an appointment which he finally got after serving four excruciating years in the White House. Though Taft's close friend and political ally Theodore Roosevelt eventually accused him of betraying the progressive cause, President Taft was actually responsible for pursuing two times the number of anti-trust suits pursued during the administration of the "Trust-busting" President Roosevelt. President Taft was also responsible for the establishment of the Department of Labor, the Federal Children's Bureau, and a commission to objectively study the effect the tariff had on the national economy. Ultimately President Taft's biggest problem was that he was not President Roosevelt, and his years in office were spent in the shadow of the Roosevelt Administration.
William Howard Taft was born September 15, 1857, in Mount Auburn, Cincinnati, Ohio. He was the second of five children born to Louisa and Alphonso Taft, Secretary of War and Attorney General under President Grant. Alphonso Taft was also minister to Austria Hungary in 1882 and minister to Russia in 1884-1885. William Howard Taft received his early education from the Cincinnati public school system. He attended high school in Cincinnati where he excelled in sports and academics. In 1874 Taft entered Yale and was ranked second in his class when he graduated four years later. After Yale, Taft returned to Cincinnati where he studied law in his father's office. He studied a year at Cincinnati Law School before passing the bar in 1880.
Taft was appointed assistant prosecuting attorney of Hamilton County, Ohio in 1881. The following year he worked as a collector for the Ohio District Internal Revenue Service, a position he disliked and soon quit. In 1883 William Howard Taft established a law firm with a former law partner of his father's.
On June 19, 1886 William Howard Taft married Helen Herron, the daughter of a successful lawyer who was a former law partner of Rutherford B. Hayes. The couple had one daughter and two sons. Robert Alphonso Taft became a leader of the Republican Party in the late 1940's and early 1950's, and was on the Republican ballot for President in 1940, 1948, and 1952, but never secured the nomination. Charles Phelps Taft became the mayor of Cincinnati in 1955 and served in that capacity until 1957.
William Howard Taft was appointed to a vacant seat in the Ohio State Superior Court in 1887 and was elected to his own term when his appointment expired. In 1892 William Taft received an appointment as a federal judge on the United States Circuit Court. During this time he also taught courses at Cincinnati Law School. Taft spent eight years as a judge and professor and thoroughly enjoyed his work and had no intention of leaving his position. When, in 1900, President McKinley appointed him head of a commission to establish a government in the Philippines, Taft turned the position down. The President finally talked Taft into accepting the appointment by promising a subsequent appointment to the Supreme Court.
Taft arrived in the Philippines intending a very short stay. He began reorganizing the court system and improving the roads and schools. One year later he was appointed governor-general of the Philippines and began the process of establishing a semi-independent government. Taft grew exceedingly fond of the Filipinos, and though incredibly condescending, he meant to express affection when he referred to them as "my little brown brothers." Over the course of the next three years he rejected two appointments to the Supreme Court in order to stay in the Philippines and finish the job he started. It was President Roosevelt who finally convinced Taft to leave in 1904 by appointing him Secretary of War under the condition that he be given a major say in United States policy towards the Philippines.
As Secretary of War, Taft was primarily responsible for a secret agreement with Japan recognizing Japan's sovereignty over Korea in return for recognition of the United States' sovereignty over the Philippines. He played a supervisor's role in the construction of the Panama Canal and was also responsible for coordinating the relief effort for victims of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.
When President Roosevelt declined the Republican nomination for re-election in 1908, he chose William Howard Taft as his successor. Although Taft was extremely apprehensive and doubted his qualifications, Roosevelt and Taft's wife were persistent. Taft excepted the nomination and went on to beat William Jennings Bryan by a comfortable margin in the popular vote and by 321-162 in the electoral college. William Howard Taft became the twenty-seventh President of the United States on March 4, 1909.
One of President Taft's first accomplishments in the White House was signing the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act into law. Though it provided for a reduction of the tariff, the progressives felt that it did not go nearly far enough. Progressive Republicans saw the President's support of the minimal tariff reduction as a direct betrayal of the ideals of former President Roosevelt. Their feeling of betrayal was furthered when President Taft refused to heed progressives' pleas to do something about the unrestrained power of the Speaker of the House, Senator Joseph Canon. The split between President Taft and Progressive Republicans became irreversible when President Taft sided with Secretary of the Interior Richard A. Ballinger in a dispute between Ballinger and Roosevelt's friend, Chief of the Division of Forestry (now Department of Agriculture) Gifford Pinchot. By the time the vacationing Roosevelt returned from his African hunting trip, progressive opposition to President Taft was overwhelming. Roosevelt agreed whole-heartily with the progressives that a betrayal had taken place. A rift began between President Taft and former President Roosevelt that would culminate with the two friends running against each other in the next election.
During his years in office, President Taft brought more than 90 suits against large corporations (the largest being Standard Oil) for violations of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. President Taft was also responsible for the establishment of the Department of Labor, the Federal Children's Bureau, and a commission to objectively study the effects of the tariff on the national economy. He signed a law requiring candidates for certain governmental offices to disclose their campaign expenditures and expanded the authority of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The Sixteenth Amendment, providing for the levying of a federal income tax, was ratified in 1913.
President Taft referred to his foreign policy as "Dollar Diplomacy." He sought to increase the size and number of markets available to the United States, particularly in opening up Latin America. President Taft intervened militarily in a revolution in Nicaragua to protect the financial interests of the United States and organized a reciprocal trade agreement with Canada, which later failed to be ratified by that country's government.
Former President Roosevelt unsuccessfully challenged President Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912. Republicans dissatisfied with President Taft joined together to form the Progressive, or "Bull Moose" Party, and nominated former President Theodore Roosevelt as their candidate. The presence of Roosevelt in the election was enough to split the Republican vote, allowing the Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson to win. In humiliating defeat, President Taft received only 8 electoral votes, while Roosevelt received 88 and Wilson 435. He left Washington after witnessing Wilson's inauguration on March 4, 1913.
Former President Taft spent the first few years after leaving the White House as a professor of law at Yale. He wrote numerous books and articles for scholarly journals on Law. In 1913 he was elected president of the American Bar Association. When the United States entered World War I, President Wilson appointed Taft Joint Chairman of the War Labor Board, an organization to arbitrate in disputes between management and labor. On May 19, 1921 Chief Justice Edward White died, leaving a vacancy on the Supreme Court which President Harding would fill with Taft in July of 1921. Justice Taft's legal opinions while serving on the Supreme Court were considered by his contemporaries as a middle-of-the-road conservative. He was responsible for lobbying support behind the Judiciary Act of 1925, which increased and broadened the freedom of the Supreme Court in deciding what cases it would and would not hear. Justice Taft administered the oath of office to Calvin Coolidge in 1925 and to Herbert Hoover in 1929. Illness forced Taft to resign from the Supreme Court on February 3, 1930. William Howard Taft died of heart failure on March 8, 1930.
