William Howard Taft

"William Taft" redirects here. For other uses, see William Taft (disambiguation).

William Howard Taft
27th President of the United States
In office March 4, 1909 – March 4, 1913
Vice President	James S. Sherman
Preceded by	Theodore Roosevelt
Succeeded by	Woodrow Wilson
10th Chief Justice of the United States
In office July 11, 1921 – February 3, 1930
Nominated by	Warren G. Harding
Preceded by	Edward Douglass White
Succeeded by	Charles Evans Hughes
42nd United States Secretary of War
In office February 1, 1904 – June 30, 1908
President	Theodore Roosevelt
Preceded by	Elihu Root
Succeeded by	Luke Edward Wright
1st Provisional Governor of Cuba
In office September 29, 1906 – October 13, 1906
Appointed by	Theodore Roosevelt
Preceded by	Tomás Estrada Palma (President)
Succeeded by	Charles Edward Magoon
1st US Governor-General of the Philippines
In office July 4, 1901 – December 23, 1903
Appointed by	William McKinley
Preceded by	Arthur MacArthur, Jr.
Succeeded by	Luke Edward Wright
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
In office March 17, 1892 – March 15, 1900
Appointed by	Benjamin Harrison
Preceded by	Seat established
Succeeded by	Henry Franklin Severens
6th Solicitor General of the United States
In office February 1890 – March 1892
President	Benjamin Harrison
Preceded by	Orlow W. Chapman
Succeeded by	Charles H. Aldrich
Personal details
Born	(1857-09-15)September 15, 1857 Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
Died	March 8, 1930(1930-03-08) (aged 72) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Resting place	Arlington National Cemetery
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Helen Herron ​ ​ (m. 1886;  1930)​
Children	Robert Helen Charles
Alma mater	Yale University Cincinnati Law School
Signature

William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857 – March 8, 1930) was an American jurist and statesman who served as both the 27th President of the United States (1909–13) and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States (1921–30). A leader during the Progressive Era, Taft and his conservative allies took control of the Republican Party away from Theodore Roosevelt and the liberals. He is the only person to have presided over both the executive and judicial branches of the United States federal government.

Before becoming President, Taft served as Solicitor General of the United States and as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In 1900, President William McKinley appointed Taft Governor-General of the Philippines. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Taft Secretary of War in an effort to groom Taft, then his close political ally, into his handpicked presidential successor. Taft assumed a prominent role in problem solving, assuming on some occasions the role of acting Secretary of State, while declining repeated offers from Roosevelt to serve on the Supreme Court.

Riding a wave of popular support for fellow Republican Roosevelt, Taft won an easy victory in his 1908 bid for the presidency. In his only term, Taft's domestic agenda emphasized trust-busting, civil service reform, strengthening the Interstate Commerce Commission, improving the performance of the postal service, and passage of the Sixteenth Amendment, creating a federal income tax. Abroad, Taft sought to further the economic development of nations in Latin America and Asia through "Dollar Diplomacy", and showed decisiveness and restraint in response to revolution in Mexico. The task-oriented Taft was oblivious to the political ramifications of his decisions, often alienated his own key constituencies, and was overwhelmingly defeated in his bid for a second term in the presidential election of 1912.

After leaving office, Taft spent his time in academia, arbitration, and the pursuit of world peace through his self-founded League to Enforce Peace. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Taft Chief Justice of the United States. He emphasized conservative policies and efficient management. Today, Taft is generally listed near the middle in historians' rankings of U.S. presidents.

Early life and education

Yale College photograph of Taft

William Howard Taft was born September 15, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Alphonso Taft and his second wife, Louise Torrey. The Taft family was not wealthy, living in a modest home in the suburb of Mount Auburn. Alphonso had failed in a bid for Congress in 1856, and would be unsuccessful in two tries for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 1875 and 1879. He would have more luck in appointed office, serving as a judge, ambassador and as War Secretary and Attorney General under Grant. William Howard Taft's paternal grandfather, Peter Rawson Taft, had been a judge in Vermont; Alphonso emigrated west, eventually to Ohio, and when his first wife, Elisa Phelps, died in 1852, married Louise a year and a half later, on December 26, 1853. Elisa had been from the Taft hometown of Townshend, Vermont, and Alphonso Taft looked east again for his second spouse: Louise Torrey lived in Milbury, Massachusetts, and Alphonso met her on a visit there. William Howard Taft was the eldest of three children, all sons, born to Louise and Alphonso; William had two surviving older half brothers.

William Taft was not seen as brilliant as a child, but was a hard worker; the demanding parents pushed the five boys toward success, tolerating nothing less. He attended Woodward High School in Cincinnati, a public school and highly competitive, where he excelled. His success was not enough to fully satisfy his parents, who felt he had a tendency towards laziness. Like others in his family, he attended Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut. At Yale, which he entered in 1874, the heavyset, jovial Taft was popular, to the disquiet of his father, who thought popularity unlikely to be consistent with achievement. One classmate described him succeeding through hard work rather than being the smartest, but he remembered Taft for sterling integrity. He was a member of the Linonian Society, a literary and debating society; Skull and Bones, the secret society co-founded by his father in 1832; and the Beta chapter of the Psi Upsilon fraternity. He was given the nickname "Big Lub" because of his size, but his college friends knew him by the nickname "Old Bill". While Taft's weight sometimes made him the target of attempts at humor, he usually took them with grace and himself made self-deprecating jokes. Despite his size, he was a good dancer and a better than average athlete who enjoyed golf, tennis and horseback riding. Using his size to advantage, Taft was Yale's intramural heavyweight wrestling champion. In 1878, Taft graduated, ranking second in his class out of 121. According to Taft biographer Jonathan Lurie, Taft's parents "were disappointed, but young Taft probably thought it was just fine".

Alphonso Taft had proclaimed of his son William that law "is his destiny and he should be in it". Obediently, the younger Taft made plans to attend law school. Alphonso had attended Yale Law School, but William chose to attend Cincinnati Law School. At that time when many lawyers had not attended law school, the choice of school did not carry the importance it later would, and William Taft's life still revolved around the city of his birth. He graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in 1880. While in law school, he worked on the The Cincinnati Commercial newspaper, edited by Murat Halstead. Taft was assigned to cover the local courts, and also spent time reading law in his father's office; both activities gave him practical knowledge of the law that was taught in no class. Shortly before graduating from law school, Taft went to the state capital of Columbus to take the bar examination and easily passed.

Rise in government (1880—1908)

Ohio lawyer and judge

After admission to the Ohio bar, Taft devoted himself to his job at the Commercial full-time. Halstead was willing to take him on permanently at an increase in salary if he would give up the law, but Taft declined. In October 1880, Taft was appointed assistant prosecutor for Hamilton County (where Cincinnati is located), and took office the following January. Taft later ascribed this first step on a public career that would last most of the rest of his life to having become friends with his predecessor, who then was elected prosecutor and appointed Taft as assistant. Taft served for a year as assistant prosecutor, trying his share of routine cases.

Taft resigned in January 1882 after President Chester A. Arthur appointed him Collector of Internal Revenue for the First District, an area centered on Cincinnati. This was a prestigious job with much opportunity for patronage appointments, and had once been held by William Henry Harrison, later President of the United States. Taft quickly accepted. In a 1908 interview, he ascribed his advancement to the influence of his father (by then appointed minister to Austria) and to the fact that "like any well-trained Ohio man, I always had my plate the right side up when offices were falling". Once in office, he refused to dismiss competent employees who were politically out of favor, and resigned effective in March 1883, writing to Arthur that he wished to begin private practice in Cincinnati.

Forming a partnership with Major Harlan Page Lloyd, an associate of his father's, Taft tried many routine cases in the following years. Only one, a failed defense of a newspaper in a libel action—attracted much notice. In 1884, Taft campaigned for the Republican candidate for president, Maine Senator James G. Blaine, who lost to New York Governor Grover Cleveland. In October, a month before the presidential election, Taft had been made chief supervisor of the local elections held that month. As in most Cincinnati elections of the time, there were large number of frauds, which Taft, despite appointing 60 special deputies, was unable to prevent. There was widespread violence, and Taft testified before an investigation congressional committee that he had no knowledge of any problems until late in the day.

It is not clear when Taft met Helen Herron, but it was no later than 1880, when she mentioned in her diary receiving an invitation to a party from him. By 1884, they were meeting regularly, and in 1885, after an initial rejection, she agreed to marry him. The wedding took place at the Herron home on June 19, 1886. William Taft remained devoted to his wife throughout their almost 44 years of marriage. Nellie Taft pushed her husband much has his parents had, and could be very frank with her criticisms. The couple had three children, of which the eldest, Robert, became a U.S. senator.

In 1887, Taft, then aged 29, was appointed to a vacant seat on the Superior Court of Cincinnati by Governor Joseph B. Foraker. Although the two men had clashed repeatedly as attorneys, Foraker had received positive reviews of Taft's courtroom performance from Judge Judson Harmon, who was resigning. The appointment was good for just over a year, after which Taft would have to face the voters to gain a term in his own right, and in April 1888, he won the first of three elections he faced in his lifetime, the other two being for the presidency. Some two dozen of Taft's opinions as a state judge survive, the most significant being Moores & Co. v. Bricklayers' Union No. 1 (1889) if only because it was used against him when he ran for president in 1908. The case involved bricklayers who refused to work for any firm that dealt with a company called Parker Brothers, with which they were in dispute. Taft ruled that the union's action amounted to a secondary boycott, which was illegal. In another case, Cincinnati Bell Foundry Co. v. Dodds, a complaint by a company against a former foreman, alleging he had taken trade secrets to a competitor, Taft entered an injunction in favor of the plaintiff. The judge reasoned that as no similar bells had been made by others during the past twenty years, the process was likely secret, and not well known as alleged by Dodds.

Solicitor General

There was a seat vacant on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1889, and Governor Foraker suggested President Harrison appoint Taft to fill it. Taft was 32; his professional goal was always a seat on that court, he actively sought the seat, while stating it was unlikely he would get it. He wrote to Foraker urging the governor to press his case. The governor told Taft that a President Foraker would appoint Taft to the Supreme Court, but failed of re-election in 1889, damaging his presidential prospects. Such an appointment would not come to Taft from Harrison, who in 1890 instead appointed him Solicitor General of the United States. Taft was the youngest man to that point to be Solicitor General, who is tasked with advising the Attorney General and president, and with arguing important government cases before the Supreme Court. When Taft arrived in Washington in February 1890, the office had been vacant two months, and the work had been piling up. He worked to eliminate the backlog, while simultaneously educating himself on federal law and procedure he had not needed as an Ohio state judge.

Taft also became socially prominent in Washington. New York Senator William M. Evarts, a famous lawyer and former Secretary of State, had been a classmate of Alphonso Taft at Yale. Evarts called to see his friend's son as soon as he took office, and William and Nellie Taft were launched into Washington society. Nellie Taft was ambitious for herself and her husband, and was annoyed when the people he socialized with most were mostly the Supreme Court's justices, rather than the arbiters of Washington society such as Theodore Roosevelt, John Hay, Henry Cabot Lodge and their wives.

Although Taft was successful as Solicitor General, winning 15 of the 18 cases he argued before the Supreme Court, he was glad when in March 1891, Congress created a new judgeship for each of the United States Courts of Appeal and Harrison appointed him to the Sixth Circuit, based in Cincinnati. In March 1892, Taft resigned as Solicitor General to resume his judicial career.

Federal judge

Taft's federal judgeship was a lifetime position, and one from which promotion to the Supreme Court might come. Taft's older half-brother Charles, successful in business, supplemented Taft's government salary, allowing William and Nellie Taft and their family to live in comfort. Taft's duties involved hearing trials in the circuit, which included Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and participating with Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan, the circuit justice, and judges of the Sixth Circuit in hearing appeals. Taft spent eight years of his life, from 1892 to 1900, in personal and professional contentment.

Two cases that Taft heard as a federal judge, and that were used by his opponents to depict him as anti-labor during his 1908 presidential campaign, were Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan Railway Co. v. Pennsylvania Co. and In re Phelan, with both cases arising out of the labor unrest that marked the economic Panic of 1893. Engineers had struck the Toledo railroad after being refused a rise in pay. The Brotherhood of Railway Engineers instructed its members on connecting lines not to handle traffic to or from the Toledo; that railway sought an injunction under the Interstate Commerce Act, which prohibited interference with cars moving between lines. Taft granted it, considering it a secondary boycott and cited his own Moores & Co. decision. In re Phelan stemmed from the Pullman strike: after workers at the Pullman Company were required to pay more rent for their company-owned houses in Pullman, Illinois without a corresponding rise in wages, they struck. The American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs then refused to handle any train carrying Pullman-built cars. Railroad companies obtained an injunction in Chicago against the union, mandating that there be no interference with railroad traffic. Frank Phelan was accused of violating the injunction by campaigning among Ohio railway workers to refuse Pullman-built cars. Taft wrote before the trial that he had no doubt of Phelan's guilt, found him guilty without a jury, and sentenced him to six months in prison. According to historian Louis L. Gould, "while Taft shared the fears about social unrest that dominated the middle classes during the 1890s, he was not as conservative as his critics believed. He supported the right of labor to organize and strike, and he ruled against employers in several negligence cases." Among these was Voight v. Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railway Co. William Voight, an express company worker, had signed releases as a condition of employment absolving his company and any railroad he had to travel on of liability for death or injury. Injured in a train crash, he sued and Taft allowed the case to proceed, awarding Voight damages on the ground that a common carrier could not be absolved for negligence causing injury to someone not its employee. This violated the contemporary doctrine of liberty of contract, and Taft was reversed by the Supreme Court. On the other hand, Taft's opinion in United States v. Addyston Pipe and Steel Co. was upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court. His decision was written for a three-judge panel: Taft, who was a future chief justice; Justice Harlan and Horace Lurton, whom Taft would appoint to the Supreme Court as president. Taft's opinion, in which he held that a pipe manufacturers' association had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, was described by Henry Pringle, his biographer, as having "definitely and specifically revived" that legislation.

Another case cited in Taft's defense in the 1908 campaign was Narramore v. Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati & St. Louis Railway Co. Ohio had recently passed a law requiring safety blocks on railroad guard rails and switches; Narramore was a railroad employee who brought suit after being injured while riding on a railroad car over switches lacking such safety gear. The railroad won a pretrial dismissal in the federal district court, on the ground that Narramore had assumed the risk of such injuries by continuing to work despite knowing that the stretch of track lacked safety blocks. Taft, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, reversed, finding that the clear intent of the Ohio law was to protect workers, and Narramore should only have been barred from recovery if he had contributed to the accident through his negligence. The panel returned the case to the district court for a jury trial.

Taft was spoken of for the Supreme Court again when vacancies developed under Cleveland, but he received no appointment. In 1896, Taft became dean and Professor of Property at his alma mater, the Cincinnati Law School, a post that required him to prepare and give two hour-long lectures each week. He was devoted to his law school, and deeply committed to the cause of advancing legal education, introducing the case system to the curriculum. He had become widely respected for his published opinions while on the circuit court, and in March of that year was received at the White House by President Cleveland. As a federal judge, Taft could not involve himself with politics, but followed it closely, remaining a Republican supporter. He watched with some disbelief as the campaign of Ohio Governor William McKinley developed in 1894 and 1895, writing "I cannot find anybody in Washington who wants him". By March 1896, Taft realized that as McKinley would likely be nominated, though he feared the candidate would gain the Republican nomination and would then "demonstrate his incapacity. It is a case of 'fooling the people' ". He landed solidly in McKinley's camp after former Nebraska representative William Jennings Bryan in July stampeded the 1896 Democratic National Convention with his Cross of Gold speech. Bryan, in his campaign, strongly supported free silver, a policy that Taft saw as economic radicalism. Taft feared that people would hoard gold in anticipation of a Bryan victory, but he could do nothing in the campaign except worry. McKinley was elected, but when a vacancy on the Supreme Court opened in 1898, the only one that would occur under McKinley, the president named Joseph McKenna.

Philippine years

In 1900, Taft was called to Washington to meet with President McKinley. Taft hoped a Supreme Court appointment was in the works, but instead McKinley wanted to place Taft on the commission to organize a civilian government in the Philippines. Those islands had been ceded to the United States by Spain following the Spanish–American War and the 1898 Treaty of Paris, and Taft had not approved of taking them. The appointment would require Taft's resignation from the bench, and McKInley assured him that if he fulfilled this task, and a Supreme Court vacancy occurred during McKinley's presidency, Taft would have it. After consulting with his family, Taft decided to go to Manila, on condition he was made head of the commission, with responsibility for success or failure; McKinley agreed.

Many Filipinos had responded to the American takeover with a fierce resistance, seeking independence for the islands, but the United States and military governor General Arthur MacArthur had the upper hand by 1900. MacArthur deemed the commission a nuisance, and their mission a quixotic attempt to impose self-government on a people far from ready for it. The general was forced to co-operate with Taft, as McKinley had given the commission control over the military budget in the Philippines. Taft constantly appealed to both men's superior, Secretary of War Elihu Root, as he and MacArthur clashed over jurisdiction and other matters. The commission had taken executive power in the Philippines on September 1, 1900; on July 4, 1901, Taft became civilian governor,. MacArthur, still the military governor, was at that time relieved by General Adna Chaffee, who was designated only as commander of American forces. Although much of the wind had gone out of the sails of the rebellion with the capture of its leader, Aguinaldo, in January 1901, relations between Taft and the military improved only slightly, as Chaffee's views of the civilians were similar to those of General MacArthur.

Taft sought to make the Filipinos partners in a venture that would lead to their self-government; he saw independence as something far away. Many Americans in the Philippines saw the locals as racial inferiors, but Taft wrote soon before his arrival, "we propose to banish this idea from their minds". Taft did not impose segregation at official events, and treated the Filipinos as social equals". Nellie Taft recalled that "neither politics nor race should influence our hospitality in any way". According to Professor Paul Kramer in his account of the early American rule in the Philippines, "fiesta politics played an important role in the [commission's] inclusionary racial formation", a policy at odds with racial politics on the US mainland. Although Taft's views of the Filipino were sometimes negative—in a letter to Root, he described them as "a vast mass of ignorant, superstitious people, well intentioned, light hearted, temperate, somewhat cruel"—but he did not allow his private views to affect public policy.

McKinley died by assassination in September 1901, and was succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt and Taft first became friends around 1890 while Taft was Solicitor General and Roosevelt a member of the Civil Service Commission. Taft had, after McKinley's election, urged the appointment of Roosevelt as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and watched as Roosevelt became a war hero, Governor of New York, and Vice President of the United States. They met again when Taft went to Washington in January 1902 to recuperate after two operations caused by an infection. While there, Taft testified before the Senate Committee on the Philippines. Taft wished to have the small farmer in the Philippines have a stake in the new government through land ownership, but much of the arable farmland was held by Catholic religious orders. Roosevelt had Taft go to Rome to negotiate with Pope Leo XIII. Those orders contributed clergy to the Philippines, but the priests were mostly Spanish and resented by the locals; Taft wanted Americans to minister to the people and train some as clergy. Taft did not succeed in resolving these issues on his visit to Rome, but an agreement was made in 1903 to transfer the land and send the Spanish priests home. Back in Manila, he fell ill again in early 1903. Taft cabled Root that he was recuperating at a mountain resort, and had ridden a horse 25 miles (40 km) to high elevation. Root sent a reply to the rotund Taft, "How is the horse?"

In late 1902, Taft had heard from Roosevelt that a seat on the Supreme Court would soon fall vacant on the resignation of Justice Shiras, and Roosevelt desired that Taft fill it. Although this was Taft's professional goal, he refused as he felt his work as governor was not yet done. Roosevelt tried to insist, but Taft was firm, leaking the information to Filipino who put on a large public demonstration to show they wanted Taft to remain. Roosevelt gave in. The following year, President Roosevelt asked Taft to become Secretary of War. Root desired to return to his law practice, and Roosevelt argued that Taft would remain in charge of the Philippines as War Secretary, and Root was willing to postpone his departure until 1904, allowing Taft time to wrap up his work in Manila. After consulting with his family, Taft agreed to take the cabinet position, and filed for the United States in December 1903.

According to historian Lewis L. Gould, in the Philippines, "Taft gained executive experience, broadened his knowledge in such areas as finance, sanitation, taxation, currency, educational systems, and tariffs, and learned what real heat was". Although Taft did not promote racist policies while in the islands, Kramer questioned the significance of Taft's actions, as his course of action was based on milestones of self government of doubtful significance, with the indefinite postponement of actual independence. Lurie, citing Kramer, deemed the legacy of Taft's racial polices there difficult to assess.

Secretary of War (1904–1908)

William Howard Taft addressing the audience at the Philippine Assembly in the Manila Grand Opera House.

When Taft took office as Secretary of War in January 1904, he was not called upon to spend much of his time administering the Army, which the president was content to do himself—Roosevelt wanted him as a troubleshooter in difficult situations, as a legal adviser, and to be able to give campaign speeches as Roosevelt sought election in his own right. No president had ever succeeded by the death of his predecessor and then won a full term, but with the death of Ohio Senator Mark Hanna in February 1904, there was no serious challenger to Roosevelt on the Republican side. Taft strongly defended Roosevelt's record in campaign speeches, and wrote of the president's successful but strenuous efforts to gain election, "I would not run for president if you guaranteed the office. It is awful to be afraid of one's shadow."

The cabinet that Taft joined was headed by John Hay as Secretary of State. Hay was aging and was often ill, leaving Taft to act in Hay's place in addition to his own duties. Hay's death in July 1905 restored Root to the cabinet as his replacement. Newspapers considered both Taft and Root possible successors to Roosevelt, as well as rivals for his endorsement. The president wrote to Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge in 1905 that Taft, as of then, was more electable, but that anything could happen in three years. Other candidates who Roosevelt could support included Charles Evans Hughes, who was elected Governor of New York in 1906. By 1905, Taft was coming to terms with the likelihood he would be the next Republican nominee for president, though he did not plan to actively campaign for it. When Justice Henry B. Brown resigned in 1905, Taft would not accept the seat although Roosevelt offered it, a position Taft held to when another seat opened in 1906.

With the Chief Justiceship the only office he would take in preference to continued political service and a presidential run, Taft kept a close eye on the health and retirement prospects of the incumbent, Melville Fuller. Justice Brown had told Taft that Brown would like to see Taft Chief Justice, but Fuller was unlikely to resign. He might , however, succumb to age. Taft deemed Fuller likely to live many years. When Mrs. Fuller died, Taft spent flowers, and privately speculated on the effect the bereavement might have on Fuller's tenure. Roosevelt had indicated he was likely to appoint Taft if the opportunity came to fill the court's center seat, but some considered Attorney General Philander Knox a better candidate. In any event, Fuller remained Chief Justice throughout Roosevelt's presidency. Pringle deemed Taft's attitude to Fuller "a little ghoulish".

Through the 1903 Panamanian Revolution and the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, the United States had secured rights to build a canal in the isthmus of Panama. Legislation authorizing construction did not specify which government department would be responsible, and Roosevelt designated the Department of War. Taft journeyed to Panama in 1904, viewing the canal site and meeting with Panamanian officials such as President Manuel Amador to find ways to stabilize the country politically and financially. Taft privately believed a sea-level canal the better option, but when Roosevelt decided a canal with locks would be superior, supported the president. The Isthmian Canal Commission had trouble keeping a chief engineer, and when John D. Stevens in February 1907 submitted his recommendation, Taft recommended an Army engineer, George W. Goethals, whom he had met in Panama in 1904. Under Goethals, the project moved ahead smoothly.

Another colony lost by Spain in the war was Cuba, but as freedom for Cuba had been a major purpose of the war, it was not annexed by the US, but was, after a period of occupation, given independence in 1902. Election fraud and corruption followed, as did factional conflict. In September 1906, President Tomás Estrada Palma asked for US intervention, and stated that he would resign. Taft traveled to Cuba, where on September 29, 1906, he initiated the Second Occupation of Cuba when he established the Provisional Government of Cuba under the terms of the Cuban–American Treaty of Relations of 1903, declaring himself Provisional Governor of Cuba, a post he held for two weeks before being succeeded by Charles Edward Magoon. In his time in Cuba, Taft worked to persuade Cubans that the US intended stability, not occupation.

I, the undersigned, Yu Wo of 15B Wellington Street [Hong Kong] agree to make a sedan chair ... to carry the American giant, the Honorable William Howard Taft ... it would obviously discredit this nation [China] if the chair should disintegrate ... It shall be reinforced at all weak points ... The shafts shall be of double diameter. The body itself shall be of eventful width ...The [American] consul general may have the use of the chair October 11 and 12, 1907, after which the chair belongs to me, with the understanding that if ex-President Cleveland, also reputed to be of heroic size, tours the world, the consul general shall direct his steps to my door.

Contract for the construction of a sedan chair for Taft at Hong Kong, 1907

Taft remained involved in Philippine affairs. During Roosevelt's election campaign in 1904, he urged that Philippine agricultural products be admitted to the U.S. without duty. This caused growers of US sugar and tobacco to complain to Roosevelt, who remonstrated with his Secretary of War, who expressed unwillingness to change his position, and threatened to resign. Roosevelt dropped the matter. Taft intervened more directly in the government in Manila by dismissing the new governor, Luke Wright, who had been Taft's deputy, and had erected social barriers between Americans and Filipinos. Taft returned to the islands in 1905, leading a delegation of congressmen, and again in 1907, to open the first Philippine Assembly.

On both of his Philippine visits as Secretary of War, Taft went to Japan, and met with officials there. The meeting in July 1905 come a month before the Portsmouth Peace Conference which would end the Russo-Japanese War with the Treaty of Portsmouth. Taft met with Japanese Prime Minister Katsura Tarō. After that meeting, the two signed a memorandum now called the Taft–Katsura Agreement. This was not a formal treaty, but an agreed statement setting forth both nations' views. Japan indicated it had no desire to invade the Philippines, and the US that it did not object to Japanese control of Korea. Roosevelt fully ratified his Secretary of War's actions and words. The 1907 visit came amid violence against Japanese in California and questions about whether Japan was violating the Gentlemen's Agreement by which Japan agreed to restrict emigration of laborers. Roosevelt feared the Japanese were going to occupy the Philippines, and the US would be hard put to defend them at such a distance. Taft arrived in Japan in late September 1907, finding the Japanese did not seek the Philippines, and wanted the US to keep them. The government in Tokyo was unwilling to accept any treaty which discriminated against Japanese immigration to the US, as opposed to European. To address American concerns about the emigration of laborers, [[Foreign Minister of Japan|Foreign Minister Tadasu Hayashi agreed to issue fewer passports to them.

Presidential election of 1908

See also: United States presidential election, 1908

One of a series of candid photographs known as the Evolution of a Smile, taken just after a formal portrait session, while Taft learns by telephone from Roosevelt that he has been nominated by the Republican Party for the office of President.

Electoral votes by state, 1908.

1909 inauguration

Theodore Roosevelt had become president after William McKinley was assassinated in 1901. After getting elected president in his own right in 1904, on election night on the lawn of the White House, Roosevelt publicly declared he would not run for reelection in 1908, a decision that he immediately regretted. But he felt bound by his word. Taft was the logical successor, but he was initially reluctant to run, as he had been earlier. As a member of Roosevelt's cabinet, he had declared that his future ambition was to serve on the Supreme Court, not the White House. Taft's efforts in stumping for the party in the 1906 mid-term elections made him aware of his deficiencies as an effective campaigner. Mrs. Taft even commented during this time, "never did he cease to regard a Supreme Court appointment as more desirable than the presidency." But,Taft conceded, with his extensive involvement as the most prominent member of the cabinet, that he was the most "available" man; thus he agreed that were he to be nominated for president, he would put his personal convictions aside and run a vigorous campaign.

At the time, Roosevelt was convinced that Taft was a genuine "progressive" and helped push through the nomination of his Secretary of War onto the Republican ticket on the first ballot at the party convention. His opponent in the general election was William Jennings Bryan, who had already run for president twice before, in 1896 and in 1900 against William McKinley. During the campaign, Taft undercut Bryan's liberal support by accepting some of his reformist ideas, and Roosevelt's progressive policies blurred the distinctions between the parties. Bryan, on the other hand, ran an aggressive campaign against the nation's business elite. The Democrats referred to Taft's nomination and potential election, pre-determined by the powerful Roosevelt, as a possible "forced succession to the presidency."

It did not take long for Taft's markedly different style, and lack of political acumen, to emerge. Joseph B. Foraker of Ohio, seeking Taft's support in his senatorial re-election, made an appearance with Taft, creating the impression Taft was allied with the big business trusts. And when Taft failed to follow the Hearst papers in denouncing Foraker's association with them, Roosevelt became incensed. Taft also showed his political ineptness by choosing Frank Hitchcock to be Chairman of the Republican Party. Hitchcock was quick to bring in men closely allied with big business, which further alienated the progressive wing of the party. Despite the difference in styles, Taft had demonstrated for the most part that the substance of his policies echoed those of Roosevelt. In the end, Taft won by a comfortable electoral margin, giving Bryan his worst loss in three presidential campaigns. Taft defeated Bryan by 159 electoral votes; however, he garnered just 51% of the popular vote. Mrs. Taft was quoted quite prophetically, saying that, "There was nothing to criticize, except his not knowing or caring about the way the game of politics is played."

Presidency, 1909 – 1913

BEP engraved portrait of Taft as President.

Taft did not enjoy the easy relationship with the press that Roosevelt had, choosing not to offer himself for interviews or photo opportunities as often as the previous president had done. When a reporter informed him he was no Teddy Roosevelt, Taft replied that his main goal was to "try to accomplish just as much without any noise". Taft even made executive decisions (see below) demonstrating his indifference with the press. Indeed, Taft's administration marked a change in style from the political charisma of Roosevelt to the passion of Taft for the rule of law. Taft, in fashioning his cabinet, showed also that he was not unwilling to depart to some degree from Roosevelt's progressivism; he named an anti-progressive, Philander Chase Knox Secretary of State, who had primary influence over other appointments.

Taft considered himself a progressive, in part from his belief in an expansive use of the rule of law, as the prevailing device that should be actively used by judges and others in authority to solve not only societal but international problems. Taft's devotion to the law also made him extremely adherent to precedent, however, and less politically adroit than Roosevelt; it is said by historians that he lacked the flexibility, creativity, and personal magnetism of his mentor – as well as the publicity devices and broad base of public support that had made Roosevelt so formidable.

The divergent views of the two men over the powers of the executive is well articulated in their respective memoirs. In summary, Roosevelt for his part believed 'the President has not just a right but a duty to do anything demanded by the needs of the nation, unless such action is forbidden by the Constitution or federal law." Taft's general opinion on the other hand was that "the President can exercise no power which cannot fairly be traced to some specific grant of power in the Constitution or act of Congress."

Domestic policies and politics

Official White House portrait of William Howard Taft, painted in 1911 by Anders Zorn

Keller argues that "Taft in his way was a Progressive president, surpassing TR in antitrust suits and subscribing to an administrative more than political model of the presidency." Taft, however, increasingly came to blows with the Progressive faction of the GOP, which looked to Roosevelt or to Senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. of Wisconsin for leadership. Taft thus increasingly depended on the conservative faction of his party.

When President Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would divide the Republican Party, he assumed a low profile on that issue. Taft ignored the political dynamite and kept the tariff rates on his agenda (he had raised expectations of lower rates in the campaign); he passively encouraged congressional reformers to draft bills including lower rates, while broadcasting a willingness to compromise with conservative leaders in the Congress, who wanted to keep tariff rates high. Taft described this approach as his "policy of harmony" with the Congress. The President displayed a more aggressive role early in the drafting of tariff legislation as it regarded the Philippines. He also assumed a similar role in pushing for a corporate income tax. On other matters, he was content to wait until legislation reached its final stage in a joint House–Senate conference committee. Once there, however, he jumped in with both feet, calling each and every member of the committee for a one-on-one meeting at the White House. The resulting tariff rates in the Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909 were too high for the progressives, based in part on Taft's campaign promises; but instead of blaming the act's shortcomings on Senator Nelson W. Aldrich and big business, Taft claimed the responsibility, calling it the best bill to come from the Republican Party. Again, due to his results-oriented style, politically he had managed to alienate all sides. The Bureau of Trade Relations later concluded the act overall was moderately successful in lowering rates. Congress refused however to fund the Tariff Board which the President included in the Payne–Aldrich Bill, which would have removed the setting of rates from direct continual Congressional manipulation.

Taft was less likely to speak critically of big business than Roosevelt. Nevertheless, his rule-of-law orientation resulted in the filing of 90 antitrust suits during his administration, compared to 54 such suits by Roosevelt's two-term Justice Department. Taft's efforts included one suit against the country's largest corporation, U.S. Steel, for the acquisition of a Tennessee company during Roosevelt's tenure. The lawsuit even named Roosevelt personally without Taft's knowledge. This was responsible for a complete break with Roosevelt. Progressives within the Republican Party began to actively oppose Taft. Senator La Follette created the National Progressive Republican League to replace Taft on the national level; although, his campaign crashed after a disastrous speech. Most of LaFollette's supporters went over to Roosevelt. The business community and the conservative wing of the party were also alienated from Taft and contributions to the GOP dried up.

Taft's administration got a political boost after 25 western railroads announced an intent to raise rates by 20%, and Taft responded, first with a threat to enforce the Sherman Antitrust Act against them; he then negotiated a settlement whereby they agreed to submit delayed rate requests to a new Interstate Commerce Commission having authority over rate requests.

In late 1911, President Taft called for a "central organization in touch with associations and chambers of commerce throughout the country." Just four months later, on April 22, 1912, Taft created the United States Chamber of Commerce as a counterbalance to the rise of the labor movement at the time.

Taft's obsession with the law over politics created more trouble for him in the well noted dispute between his Interior Secretary, Richard Achilles Ballinger, and the Chief of the Forestry Service, Gifford Pinchot. Ballinger's job was to assure the proper legal form of land withdrawals made from the private sector as part of Roosevelt's conservation policy. Ballinger's review in many instances concluded that the legalities were lacking and lands had to be returned to private owners. Pinchot led the objections to these returns, and even convinced an Interior Department subordinate, Louis Glavis, to bring an accusation against Ballinger for fraud and collusion with corporate timber interests. Taft refused to intervene until the resulting discord in the cabinet forced him to act. The President reviewed the matter, then fired Glavis and Pinchot; Ballinger also tendered his resignation, which would have further served to end the matter were it not for Taft's refusal to accept it. By that time the political damage had been done, with further alienation of the Progressives from the administration.

Taft, ever reluctant to dismiss cabinet members, nevertheless used the resignations of Ballinger and War Secretary Dickinson to modify the complexion of the cabinet by appointing more progressive Republicans. Walter L. Fisher, from the National Conservation League and an ally of Pinchot, replaced Ballinger. Henry L. Stimson, another progressive, replaced Dickinson. Taft's overriding concern in making most appointments, however, was ability and experience, not party or faction alignment. This was particularly the case with respect to judiciary appointments, specifically in the south, where Taft felt the courts were the weakest. Taft's high standards, which reduced the influence of Senatorial courtesy in the selection process, resulted in the placement of over one hundred well qualified federal judges. Nevertheless, in the process Taft passed up yet another opportunity to embolden himself politically through the use of patronage.

In the area of federal spending, Taft initiated reforms which would revolutionize the Executive's role in the federal government's budget process. Previously, each executive department presented to the Treasury Dept. its own expense estimates, which were then forwarded to the Congress. Taft ordered each department to begin submitting its requests to the cabinet for review. The first such round of requests and cabinet reviews resulted in a reduction of $92 million, representing the first actual presidential budget in modern history. Taft then requested, and received, approval and funding to create the Commission on Economy and Efficiency to study the budgeting process. The study recommended the President be required early in the Congressional session to present the legislature with a comprehensive budget. This recommendation ultimately became law with passage of the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921.

Taft's "policy of harmony" with Congress facilitated passage of most of his legislative program. Nevertheless, in the 1910 midterm elections, the Democrats assumed control of the House for the first time in 16 years. At the same time, in the Senate, while the Republicans retained their majority, they lost 8 seats.

Corporate income tax

To solve an impasse during the 1909 tariff debate, Taft proposed income taxes for corporations and a constitutional amendment to remove the apportionment requirement for taxes on incomes from property (taxes on dividends, interest, and rents), on June 16, 1909. His proposed tax on corporate net income was 1% on net profits over $5,000. It was designated an excise on the privilege of doing business as a corporation whose stockholders enjoyed the privilege of limited liability, and not a tax on incomes as such. In 1911, the Supreme Court, in Flint v. Stone Tracy Co., upheld the tax. Receipts grew from $21 million in the fiscal year 1910 to $34.8 million in 1912.

In July 1909, a proposed amendment to allow the federal government to tax incomes was passed unanimously in the Senate and by a vote of 318 to 14 in the House. It was quickly ratified by the states, and on February 3, 1913, it became a part of the Constitution as the Sixteenth Amendment.

African Americans and immigrants

Taft announced in his inaugural address his intention of refusing to appoint African Americans to offices where this would cause race friction. Termed his "Southern Policy", this stance effectively invited white protests wherever blacks were to be, or had already been appointed. Taft made good on his stated intention and removed most black office holders in the South and made only token appointments in the North. Taft was, however, the first president to hire African Americans security guards in the White House.

Taft met with Booker T. Washington and publicly endorsed his program for the uplifting of black Americans. He advised them to stay out of politics at the time and emphasize education and entrepreneurship. A supporter of free immigration, Taft vetoed a law passed by Congress and supported by labor unions that would have restricted unskilled laborers by imposing a literacy test.

Foreign policy

See also: Dollar Diplomacy and Argentine participation in the South American dreadnought race

President William Howard Taft

The President made it a top priority to reorganize the State Department, saying, "It is organized on the basis of the needs of the government in 1800 instead of 1900." The Department was for the first time organized into geographical divisions, including the Far East, the Near East, Latin America and Western Europe. This reorganization was engineered in large part by Secretary of State Knox's First Assistant Secretary, Huntington Wilson, who served as de facto Secretary of State due to Knox's frequent absences. Again displaying his inept administrative leadership, Taft, while not sharing any of Knox's respect for Wilson's ability, deferred to much of Wilson's policy making.

The President personally engaged in talks with the Chinese to provide American assistance in the expansion of the Chinese railroad industry; this was accomplished through participation in the multi-national Hukuang Loan. The effort was dubbed "shirt sleeves diplomacy". Initial success in China led to an extended effort by the President to effect the Open Door Policy, particularly in Manchuria; this was not successful due in large part to the President's reliance on the inexperienced Knox, who failed to properly assess the objections of Japan and Russia.

Taft actively promoted the nation's role in the economic development of Latin America, specifically through the Honduras and Nicaragua conventions. The concept, referred to as "Dollar Diplomacy", called for the State Department to coordinate loans to the countries for infrastructure improvement from the largest banks in the U.S. Strategically, this was designed to strengthen security for the Panama Canal, increase American trade, and diminish the presence of European nations in the area. Progressives and Insurgent Republicans in the Senate opposed the Wall Street connection, so the effort was largely a failure. The President was more successful in Argentina, where agreements were reached whereby the U.S. provided loans to enable Argentina to acquire battleships; some naval construction and design secrets were sacrificed in the arrangement.

Another of Taft's goals was the furtherance of world peace. He believed that international arbitration between adversarial nations could be utilized as the best means to avoid armed conflict. This was a logical extension of his boundless faith in the rule of law as a Progressive, and it therefore even superseded U.S nationalism as embodied in the Constitution. Hence, he found no objection to surrendering to an international body jurisdiction over the nation's rights in international affairs. As a result, he championed arbitration treaties with Britain and France. The Senate was not prepared to make such a surrender of the nation's interests, and approved the treaties but only with modifications that provided the Senate with a veto over any decisions made in arbitration.

In the 1911 Congressional session Taft's most potentially notable achievement was approval of a reciprocity agreement with Canada which proposed to drastically lower trade barriers. The passage was accomplished with the cooperation of some Democrats, and at a considerable cost of Republican unity. The President confessed to Roosevelt "I think it may break the Republican party for a while." Taft also responded to criticism from party leaders, saying, "I do not give a tinker's dam whether it injures my political prospects or not." Despite the potential benefits of the agreement to the country, which Roosevelt as well understood and anticipated, all was for naught when the Canadian legislature refused to approve it.

Assassination attempt

In 1909, Taft and Porfirio Díaz planned a summit in El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, an historic first meeting between a U.S. president and a Mexican president and also the first time an American president would cross the border into Mexico. Diaz requested the meeting to show U.S. support for his planned eighth run as president, and Taft agreed to support Diaz in order to protect the several billion dollars of American capital then invested in Mexico. Both sides agreed that the disputed Chamizal strip connecting El Paso to Ciudad Juárez would be considered neutral territory with no flags present during the summit, but the meeting focused attention on this territory and resulted in assassination threats and other serious security concerns. The Texas Rangers, 4,000 U.S. and Mexican troops, U.S. Secret Service agents, agents from the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation (the predecessor agency to the FBI) and U.S. marshals were all called in to provide security. An additional 250-person private security detail led by Frederick Russell Burnham, the celebrated scout, was hired by John Hays Hammond, a close friend of Taft from Yale and a former candidate for U.S. Vice-President in 1908 who, along with his business partner Burnham, held considerable mining interests in Mexico. On October 16, the day of the summit, Burnham and Private C.R. Moore, a Texas Ranger, discovered a man holding a concealed palm pistol standing at the El Paso Chamber of Commerce building along the procession route. Burnham and Moore captured and disarmed the would be assassin within only a few feet of Taft and Díaz.

No foreign affairs controversy tested Taft's statesmanship and commitment to peace more than the subsequent uprising in Mexico against the authoritarian regime of the aging Díaz, which had attracted billions in capital investment for economic development, much of it from the U.S. Anti-regime (and anti-American) riots began in 1910 and were reported by Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson to Knox, who failed to pass the information on to the President. Some months later Wilson met with Taft (as Knox was on vacation), and upon hearing the information, the President immediately and unilaterally ordered a mobilization of 25,000 troops to the Mexican border as well as naval maneuvers in the Gulf of Mexico. Taft publicly directed that no intervention of troops into Mexico was to occur without Congressional authorization. The President's restraint in the name of peace was difficult to maintain; in Arizona two citizens were killed and almost a dozen injured as a result of the uprising; but Taft would not be goaded into fighting and so instructed the Arizona governor.

1912 presidential campaign and election

See also: United States presidential election, 1912

Taft and Roosevelt – political enemies in 1912

The results of the 1910 elections made it clear to the President that Roosevelt had departed his camp, and that he might even contend for the party nomination in 1912. On his return from Europe, Roosevelt openly broke with Taft in one of the notable political feuds of the 20th century. To the surprise of observers who thought Roosevelt had unstoppable momentum, Taft determined he would not simply step aside for the popular ex-President, despite the diminished support he had in the party. Taft acknowledged this, saying, "the longer I am President, the less of a party man I seem to become." Roosevelt declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination in February 1912; Taft soon decided that he would focus on canvassing for delegates and not attempt at the outset to take on the more able campaigner one on one. As Roosevelt became more radical in his progressivism, Taft was hardened in his resolve to achieve re-nomination, as he was convinced that the Progressives threatened the very foundation of the government. Taft ultimately outmaneuvered Roosevelt and Senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. in delegate count, regained control of the GOP convention; and defeated Roosevelt for the nomination.

Roosevelt and his group of disgruntled party delegates and members bolted from the party to create the Progressive Party (or "Bull Moose") ticket, splitting the Republican vote in the 1912 election. Taft thought that, despite probable defeat, the party had been preserved as "the defender of conservative government and conservative institutions." He also felt that the expected defeat would remind the party of the need for self-discipline in the face of populist rancor. Woodrow Wilson, the Democrat, was elected with 41% of the popular vote; Roosevelt got 27%, and Taft garnered 23%. Taft won a mere eight electoral votes, in Utah and Vermont, making it the worst defeat in American history of an incumbent President seeking reelection.

The defeated President had long ago acknowledged his weakness as a campaigner and as well his failure to do the necessary political housekeeping when decisions were made. He also refused to recognize the need to publicize his policies and decisions, saying "After I have made a definite statement, I have to let it go at that until the time for action arises." Taft's indifference towards the press even extended to legislation, where he failed to recognize the press' need for reduced tariffs on print paper and wood pulp. He further alienated the press when recommending that a deficit in the post office be reduced by eliminating the lower second class rates afforded to magazines and newspapers. Taft commented as follows on the state of his party after the election, "...it behooves the Republicans to gather again to the party standard and pledge anew their faith in their party's principles and to organize again to defend the constitutional government handed down to us by our fathers. Without compromising our principles, we must convince and win back former Republicans, and we must reinforce our ranks with Constitution-loving Democrats."

In spite of his failure to be re-elected, Taft achieved what he felt were his main goals as President: keeping permanent control of the party and keeping the courts sacrosanct until they were next threatened. While the strife during the election of 1912 devastated the once very close friendship between Taft and Theodore Roosevelt, the two eventually did reconcile not long before Roosevelt's death in 1919.

Administration and cabinet

The Taft cabinet
Office	Name	Term
President	William Howard Taft	1909–1913
Vice President	James S. Sherman	1909–1912
none	1912–1913
Secretary of State	Philander C. Knox	1909–1913
Secretary of the Treasury	Franklin MacVeagh	1909–1913
Secretary of War	Jacob M. Dickinson	1909–1911
Henry L. Stimson	1911–1913
Attorney General	George W. Wickersham	1909–1913
Postmaster General	Frank H. Hitchcock	1909–1913
Secretary of the Navy	George von L. Meyer	1909–1913
Secretary of the Interior	Richard A. Ballinger	1909–1911
Walter L. Fisher	1911–1913
Secretary of Agriculture	James Wilson	1909–1913
Secretary of Commerce and Labor	Charles Nagel	1909–1913

President William H. Taft's first cabinet, 1910

President William H. Taft's second cabinet, 1912
(photographed by Harris & Ewing photo studio)

Judicial appointments

Taft picked Edward Douglass White to be Chief Justice of the United States.

Main article: William Howard Taft judicial appointments

Supreme Court

Taft appointed the following justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:

• Horace Harmon Lurton – 1909
• Charles Evans Hughes – 1910
• Edward Douglass White – Chief Justice – 1910
• Willis Van Devanter – 1911
• Joseph Rucker Lamar – 1911
• Mahlon Pitney – 1912

Taft's six appointments to the Court rank below only those of George Washington (who appointed all six justices to the first Court), and of Franklin D. Roosevelt (who was president for just over twelve years) and equals that of Andrew Jackson. Taft's appointment of five new justices tied the number appointed by both Dwight D. Eisenhower and Abraham Lincoln. Four of Taft's appointees were relatively young, aged 48, 51, 53, and 54.

The appointments of Edward Douglass White and Charles Evans Hughes also are notable because Taft essentially appointed both his predecessor and successor Chief Justices, respectively. Already on the Court as an associate justice since 1894, White was the first Chief Justice to be elevated from an associate justiceship since President George Washington appointed John Rutledge to Chief Justice in 1795. Hughes initially was appointed an Associate Justice, but later resigned to run as the Republican Party's presidential candidate in the 1916 election, which he would lose. President Herbert Hoover renominated Hughes to the Supreme Court as Chief Justice following Taft's retirement.

Van Devanter and Pitney later served on the Supreme Court with Taft during Taft's tenure as Chief Justice.

Other judicial appointments

Besides his Supreme Court appointments, Taft appointed 13 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 38 judges to the United States district courts. Taft also appointed judges to various specialty courts, including the first five appointees each to the United States Commerce Court and the United States Court of Customs Appeals. The Commerce Court was abolished in 1913; Taft was thus the only President to appoint judges to that body.

States admitted to the Union

• New Mexico: January 6, 1912
• Arizona: February 14, 1912. Taft insisted that the recall provision for judges be removed from the state constitution before he would approve it. After it was removed, Taft signed the statehood bill, and state residents promptly put the provision back in.

Return to Yale

Upon leaving the White House in 1913, Taft was appointed the Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and Legal History at Yale Law School. While at Yale, Taft was initiated as an honorary member of the Acacia Fraternity. At the same time, Taft was elected president of the American Bar Association. He spent much of his time writing newspaper articles and books, most notably his series on American legal philosophy. He was a vigorous opponent of prohibition in the United States, predicting the undesirable situation that the Eighteenth Amendment would create. He also continued to advocate world peace through international arbitration, urging nations to enter into arbitration treaties with each other and promoting the idea of a League of Nations even before the First World War began. Taft was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1914. Additionally, he lectured on Legal Ethics at Boston University from 1918 to 1921.

When World War I did break out in Europe in 1914, however, Taft founded the League to Enforce Peace. He was a co-chairman of the powerful National War Labor Board between 1917 and 1918.

Taft also supported the war effort by joining the Connecticut Home Guard, an organization formed to perform many of the in-state duties of the National Guard while the National Guard was deployed overseas.

Although he continually advocated peace, he strongly favored conscription once the United States entered the War, pleading publicly that the United States not fight a "finicky" war. He feared the war would be long, but was for fighting it out to a finish, given what he viewed as "Germany's brutality."

Chief Justice, 1921–1930

Chief Justice Taft, ca. 1921

Nomination

Check signed by Taft on this first day as Chief Justice of the United States.

On June 30, 1921, following the death of Chief Justice Edward Douglass White (whom Taft himself had nominated), President Warren G. Harding nominated Taft to take his place. For a man who had once remarked, "there is nothing I would have loved more than being chief justice of the United States" the nomination to oversee the highest court in the land was like a dream come true. There was little opposition to the nomination, and the Senate approved him 60-4 in a secret session on the day of his nomination, but the roll call of the vote has never been made public. Taft received his commission immediately and readily took up the position, taking the oath of office on July 11, and serving until 1930. As such, he became the only President to serve as Chief Justice, and thus the only former President to swear in subsequent Presidents, giving the oath of office to both Calvin Coolidge (in 1925) and Herbert Hoover (in 1929).

Taft enjoyed his years on the court and was respected by his peers. Justice Felix Frankfurter once remarked to Justice Louis Brandeis that it was "difficult for me to understand why a man who is so good a Chief Justice...could have been so bad as President." Taft remains the only person to have led both the Executive and Judicial branches of the United States government. He considered his time as Chief Justice to be the highest point of his career; allegedly, he once remarked "I do not remember that I was ever President!"

Chief Justice Taft with President Warren G. Harding and former Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln, May, 1922

Accomplishments

In 1922, Taft traveled to England to study the procedural structure of the English courts and to learn how they dropped such a large number of cases quickly. During the trip, King George V and Queen Mary received Taft and his wife as state visitors.

With what he had learned in England, Taft decided to advocate the introduction and passage of the Judiciary Act of 1925, which shifts the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction to be largely discretionary upon review of litigants' petitioning to be granted an appeal (see also writ of certiorari). This allowed the Supreme Court to give preference to what they believed to be cases of national importance and allowed the Court to work more efficiently.

Besides giving the Supreme Court more control over its docket, supporting new legislation, and organizing the Judicial Conference, Taft gave the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice general supervisory power over the scattered and disorganized federal courts.

The legislation also brought the courts of the District of Columbia and of the Territories (and soon, the Commonwealths of the Philippines and Puerto Rico) into the federal court system. This united the courts for the first time as an independent third branch of government under the administrative supervision of the Chief Justice. Taft was also the first Justice to employ two full-time law clerks to assist him.

In 1929, Taft successfully argued in favor of the construction of a separate and spacious Supreme Court building, reasoning that the Supreme Court needed to distance itself from the Congress as a separate branch of the federal government. Until then, the Court had heard cases in the Old Senate Chamber of the Capitol; the Justices had no private chambers there, and their conferences were held in a room in the Capitol's basement. The building was completed in 1935, five years after Taft's death, and remains the seat of the Supreme Court to this day.

Opinions

See also: List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Taft Court

While Chief Justice, Taft wrote the opinion for the Court in 256 cases out of the Court's ever-growing caseload. His philosophy of constitutional interpretation was essentially historical contextualism. Some of his more notable opinions include:

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1925. Taft is seated in the bottom row, middle.

• Balzac v. Porto Rico, 258 U.S. 298 (1922) (opinion for the Court)
  • Ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply the criminal provisions of the Bill of Rights to overseas territories. This was one of the more famous of the Insular Cases.
• Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co., 259 U.S. 20 (1922) (opinion for the Court)
  • Holding the 1919 Child Labor Tax Law unconstitutional.
• Hill v. Wallace, 259 U.S. 44 (1922) (opinion for the Court)
  • Holding the Future Trading Act an unconstitutional use of Congress's taxing power
• Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U.S. 525 (1923) (dissenting opinion)
  • Disapproving of the Court's upholding of Lochner v. New York. In 1937, the Supreme Court agreed with Taft and reversed this decision permanently.
• Board of Trade of City of Chicago v. Olsen, 262 U.S. 1 (1923) (opinion for the Court)
  • Upholding the constitutionality of the Grain Futures Act under the Commerce Clause
• Ex Parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 87 (1925) (opinion for the Court)
  • Holding that the President's pardon power extends to pardoning people held for criminal contempt. While the Supreme Court rules provide for issuing writs of habeas corpus within the Court's original jurisdiction, Taft's opinion in Grossman was the last time the Court did so.
• Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132 (1925) (opinion for the Court)
  • Holding that police searches of automobiles without a warrant do not violate the Fourth Amendment when the police have probable cause to believe that contraband would be found in the automobile
• Samuels v. McCurdy, 267 U.S. 188 (1925) (opinion for the Court)
  • Holding that a prohibition on an item formerly possessed legally is not an ex post facto law, because its possession is an ongoing condition.
• Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926) (opinion for the Court)
  • Ruling that the President of the United States had the power to unilaterally dismiss Executive Branch appointees who had been confirmed by the Senate.
• United States v. General Electric Co., 272 U.S. 476 (1926) (opinion for the Court)
  • Ruling that a patentee who has granted a single license to a competitor to manufacture the patented product may lawfully fix the price at which the licensee may sell the product.
• Lum v. Rice, 275 U.S. 78 (1927) (opinion for the Court)
  • Ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment did not prohibit Mississippi's prevention of Asian children attending white schools during racial segregation. The Supreme Court reversed this opinion in 1954.
• Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928) (opinion for the Court)
  • Ruling that the judicial practice of excluding evidence obtained without a warrant was based on the Fourth Amendment's proscription on unreasonable search and seizure but did not apply to telephone wiretapping.
• Wisconsin v. Illinois, 278 U.S. 367 (1929) (opinion for the Court)
  • Holding that the equitable power of the United States can be used to impose positive action on the states in a situation where non-action would result in damage to the interests of other states.
• Old Colony Trust Co. v. Commissioner, 279 U.S. 716 (1929) (opinion for the Court)
  • Holding that where a third party pays the income tax owed by an individual, the amount of tax paid constitutes additional income to the taxpayer.

Medical conditions and weight

Taft is often remembered as being the most obese president. He was 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m) tall; his weight peaked at 335–340 pounds (152–154 kg) toward the end of his Presidency. The truth of the story of Taft getting stuck in a White House bathtub is unclear. However, he once did overflow a bathtub.

Evidence from eyewitnesses, and from Taft himself, strongly suggests that during his presidency he had severe obstructive sleep apnea. His chief symptom was somnolence. While President, he fell asleep during conversations, and at the dinner table, and even while standing. He was also strikingly hypertensive, with a systolic blood pressure over 200.

Within a year of leaving the presidency, Taft lost approximately 80 pounds (36 kg). His somnolence problem resolved and, less obviously, his systolic blood pressure dropped 40–50 mmHg (from 210 mmHg).

Soon after his weight loss, he had a revival of interest in the outdoors; this led him to explore Alaska. Beginning in 1920, Taft used a cane; this was a gift from Professor of Geology W. S. Foster, and was made of 250,000-year-old petrified wood.

After several heart attacks in 1924, Taft was slowing down. He wrote in 1925 that his memory was becoming poorer and in 1928, "my mind does not work as well as it did, and I scatter." When he administered the Oath of Office to President Hoover on March 4, 1929, he recited part of the oath incorrectly, later writing in a personal letter, "... my memory is not always accurate and one sometimes becomes a little uncertain.", misquoting again in that letter, but differently.

Death and legacy

Taft's headstone at Arlington National Cemetery

Taft began experiencing hallucinations as 1930 began. On February 3, he stepped down from the Supreme Court. Charles Evans Hughes, whom he had appointed as an Associate Justice while President, succeeded him as Chief Justice. An official statement by his doctors announced that he had suffered from heart disease and atherosclerosis for years, but that he had no other serious ailments.

Five weeks following his retirement, some of which was spent in a state of semi-consciousness, Taft died on March 8, 1930, from cardiovascular disease, and the same date as Associate Justice Edward Terry Sanford's unexpected death. As it was customary for members of the court to attend the funeral of deceased members, this posed a "logistical nightmare", necessitating traveling immediately from Knoxville, Tennessee, for Sanford's funeral to Washington for Taft's funeral. The house at which Taft died is now the diplomatic mission of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United States.

Three days following his death, on March 11, he became the first president and first Chief Justice to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. James Earle Fraser sculpted his grave marker out of Stony Creek granite. Taft is one of two presidents buried at Arlington National Cemetery (the other is John F. Kennedy), and is one of four Chief Justices buried there (Earl Warren, Warren E. Burger, and William Rehnquist are the others). As a former president, Taft was the only Chief Justice to have had a state funeral.

In 1938, a third generation of the Taft family entered the national political stage with the election of the former President's oldest son Robert A. Taft I to the Senate, where he became a leader of the conservative Republicans. President Taft's other son, Charles Phelps Taft II, served as the mayor of Cincinnati from 1955 to 1957.

President Taft's enduring legacy includes many things named after him. The William Howard Taft National Historic Site is the Taft boyhood home. The house in which he was born has been restored to its original appearance. It includes four period rooms reflecting family life during Taft's boyhood, and second-floor exhibits highlighting Taft's life. Others include the courthouse of the Ohio Court of Appeals for the First District in Cincinnati; streets in Cincinnati, Arlington, Virginia; and Taft Avenue in Manila, Philippines; the Taft Bridge in Washington, D.C.; a law school in Santa Ana, California; and high schools in San Antonio, Texas; Woodland Hills, California; Chicago, Illinois; and The Bronx. Taft, Eastern Samar, a town in the Philippines was named after him. After a fire burned much of the town of Moron, California, in the 1920s, it was renamed Taft, California, in his honor.

George Burroughs Torrey painted a portrait of him. Taft is the last President to have sported facial hair while in office.

Media

Collection of video clips of the president

Speech: "The Farmer and the Republican Party", Kansas City, Missouri, 1908

See also

• Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States
• Dollar Diplomacy
• History of the United States (1865–1918)
• List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States
• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States

• List of United States Chief Justices by time in office
• Taft family
• List of Presidents of the United States
• List of Presidents of the United States, sortable by previous experience
• Taft on U.S. postage stamps

Sources

• Coletta, Paolo Enrico (1989). William Howard Taft: A Bibliography. Westport, CT: Meckler Corporation.
• Lurie, Jonathan (2011). William Howard Taft: Progressive Conservative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521514217.
• Minger, Ralph Eldin (August 1961). "Taft's Missions to Japan: A Study in Personal Diplomacy". Pacific Historical Review. 30 (3): 279–294. JSTOR 3636924. {{cite journal}}: Text "CITEREFMinger" ignored (help)
• Pringle, Henry F. (1939). The Life and Times of William Howard Taft: A Biography. Vol. 1 (2008 reprint ed.). Newtown, CT: American Political Biography Press. ISBN 978-0945707196.

Further reading

Secondary sources

• Abraham, Henry J. (1992). Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-506557-3.
• Anderson, Donald F. (1973). William Howard Taft: A Conservative's Conception of the Presidency. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801407864.
• Anderson, Judith Icke (1981). William Howard Taft: An Intimate History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393014624.
• Anthony, Carl Sferrazza (2005). Nellie Taft: The Unconventional First Lady of the Ragtime Era. New York: William Morrow. ISBN 9780060513825.
• Bromley, Michael L. (2003). William Howard Taft and the First Motoring Presidency. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company. ISBN 9780786414758.
• Burns, Adam D. "Adapting to Empire: William H. Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Philippines, 1900-08," Comparative American Studies 11 (Dec. 2013), 418-33.
• Burton, David H. (1998). Taft, Holmes, and the 1920s Court: An Appraisal. Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 9780838637685.
• Burton, David H. (2005). Taft, Roosevelt, and the Limits of Friendship. Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 9780838640425.
• Burton, David H. (2004). William Howard Taft, Confident Peacemaker. Philadelphia: Saint Joseph's University Press. ISBN 9780916101510.
• Butt, Archie (1930). Taft and Roosevelt: The Intimate Letters of Archie Butt. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company.
• Chace, James (2004). 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs – The Election that Changed the Country. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780743203944.
• Coletta, Paolo Enrico (1973). The Presidency of William Howard Taft.
• Conner, Valerie (1983). The National War Labor Board.
• Cushman, Clare (2001). The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies, 1789–1995 (2nd ed.). (Supreme Court Historical Society, Congressional Quarterly Books). ISBN 978-1-56802-126-3.
• Duffy, Herbert S. (1930). William Howard Taft. ISBN 9781888213263.
• Frank, John P.; Leon Friedman; Fred L. Israel, editors (1995). The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions. Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7910-1377-9. {{cite book}}: |author3= has generic name (help)
• Gould, Lewis L. (2010). The William Howard Taft Presidency.
• Hall, Kermit L., ed. (1992). The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-505835-2.
• Hammond, John Hays (1935). The Autobiography of John Hays Hammond. New York: Farrar & Rinehart. ISBN 978-0-405-05913-1.
• Hampton, Benjamin B (April 1, 1910). "The Vast Riches of Alaska". Hampton's Magazine. 24 (1).
• Harris, Charles H. III; Sadler, Louis R. (2009). The Secret War in El Paso: Mexican Revolutionary Intrigue, 1906-1920. Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 978-0-8263-4652-0.
• Hechler, Kenneth S. (1940). Insurgency: Personalities and Politics of the Taft Era.
• Hicks, Frederick (1945). William Howard Taft, Yale Professor of Law & New Haven Citizen. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Korzi, Michael J. (2003). Our chief magistrate and his powers: a reconsideration of William Howard Taft's "Whig" theory of presidential leadership.
• Manners, William (1969). TR and Will: A Friendship that Split the Republican Party.
• Martin, Fenton S.; Goehlert, Robert U. (1990). The U.S. Supreme Court: A Bibliography. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Books. ISBN 0-87187-554-3.
• Martin, Fenton S.; Goehlert, Robert U. (1990). The U.S. Supreme Court: A Bibliography. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Books. ISBN 0-87187-554-3.
• Minger, Ralph E. (1975). William Howard Taft and United States Diplomacy: The Apprenticeship Years. 1900–1908.
• Mossman, Billy C.; Stark, M. W. (1971). "Chapter II, Former President William Howard Taft State Funeral 8–11 March 1930". The last salute : civil and military funerals, 1921-1969. Washington, DC.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Mowry, George E. (1958). The Era of Theodore Roosevelt.
• Renstrom, Peter G. (2003). The Taft Court: Justices, Rulings and Legacy. ABC-CLIO.
• Scholes, Walter V; Scholes, Marie V. (1970). The Foreign Policies of the Taft Administration.
• Solvick, Stanley D. (December 1, 1963). "William Howard Taft and the Payne-Aldrich Tariff". Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 50 (3): 424–442. doi:10.2307/1902605. ISSN 0161-391X. JSTOR 1902605.
• Sternberg, Jonathan (2008). "Deciding Not to Decide: The Judiciary Act of 1925 and the Discretionary Court". Journal of Supreme Court History. 33 (1): 1–16. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5818.2008.00176.x.
• Urofsky, Melvin I. (1994). The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Garland Publishing. p. 590. ISBN 978-0-8153-1176-8.
• van Wyk, Peter (2003). Burnham: King of Scouts. Victoria, B.C., Canada: Trafford Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4120-0901-0.
• Warren, Charles (1928). The Supreme Court in United States History. Vol. 1. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company.
• Wilensky, Norman N. (1965). Conservatives in the Progressive Era: The Taft Republicans of 1912.

Primary sources

• Taft, William Howard
  • Liberty Under Law. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1922.
  • Our Chief Magistrate and his Powers. New York City: Columbia University Press. 1916.
  • Popular Government. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1913.
  • Present Day Problems. New York City: Dodd, Mead and Company. 1908.
  • The Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court. New York City: Harper & Brothers. 1914.
  • Burton, David H., ed. (2001–2004). The Collected Works of William Howard Taft. Ohio University Press (8 volumes).
• Taft, Mrs. William Howard (1914). Recollections of Full Years.

• William Howard Taft at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a publication of the Federal Judicial Center.

External links

Official

• William Taft National Historic Site
• White House biography

Speeches

• Text of a number of Taft speeches, Miller Center of Public Affairs
• Audio clips of Taft's speeches, Michigan State University Libraries

Media coverage

• William Howard Taft collected news and commentary at The New York Times

Other

• William Howard Taft: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
• Extensive essay on William Howard Taft and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and the First Lady - Miller Center of Public Affairs
• William Howard Taft at C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits
• "Growing into Public Service: William Howard Taft's Boyhood Home", a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan
• Template:Dmoz
• Works by or about William Howard Taft at the Internet Archive