William Howard Taft life and biography

William Howard Taft was born on September 15, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio; died on March 8, 1930, in Washington, D.C.; second son of Alphonso and Louise Maria (Torrey) Taft; married: Helen Herron, June 19, 1886; children: Robert A. Taft, Helen Herron Taft Manning, Charles Phelps Taft II.

"I don't hesitate to say that I would rather have been chief justice than president." --William Howard Taft

The only American to serve the United States both as president and chief justice of the Supreme Court.

* 1892 Appointed judge of U.S. Court of Appeals
* 1901 Appointed governor of the Philippines; William McKinley assassinated; Theodore Roosevelt assumed presidency
* 1904 Taft joined Roosevelt's cabinet as secretary of war
* 1908 Elected president of the United States
* 1912 Woodrow Wilson elected president
* 1917 U.S. entered World War I
* 1920 U.S. failed to join League of Nations; Warren Harding elected president
* 1921 Taft appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court
* 1930 Died on March 8

Early life

William Howard Taft was unique not only because he was the only American to serve both as president and chief justice of the Supreme Court, but also because he literally was the biggest president ever to occupy the White House. As a boy he was dubbed "Big Lub." Throughout much of his adult life, he battled what he called "increasing flesh," at times ballooning to more than 350 pounds. One White House housekeeper reported that at one meal President Taft consumed lobster stew, salmon cutlets with peas, roast tenderloin with vegetable salad, roast turkey with potato salad, cold tongue and ham, frozen pudding, cake, fruit, and coffee. He had to endure constant jokes about his weight. Once after returning from a horseback trip, he wired to the then Secretary of War Elihu Root, "Stood trip well. Rode horseback twenty-five miles to five thousand foot elevation." Shot back Root, "How is the horse?" His weight problem became most acute when life's frustrations were most severe. One could almost chart how things were going in Taft's life by checking his girth.

Taft, however, had more than a large body. He attended Yale University and in 1878 graduated second in his class of 121. One classmate described him as "the most admired and respected man not only in my class but in all Yale." After studying law at the Cincinnati Law School, he received his law degree in 1880 and was then admitted to the Ohio bar.

On June 19, 1886, Taft married Helen Herron, called "Nellie" by her affectionate husband. The Tafts eventually had three children: Robert, who later became a leader in the U.S. Senate; Helen, who earned a Ph.D. in history from Yale and in 1920 married Frederick J. Manning, a professor of political science at Yale; and Charles, who served as mayor of Cincinnati from 1955 to 1957.

Determined to serve the citizens of his native Ohio, Taft held various public offices before he became an Ohio superior court judge in 1887. In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison named Taft U.S. solicitor general. After Taft moved his family to Washington, he continued to rise politically, winning all but two of the 18 cases he presented.

The Tafts returned to Cincinnati in March 1892 when President Harrison nominated him for a seat on the Sixth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. As a federal judge, Taft began to make a name for himself, and it seemed he soon might be headed for the Supreme Court. Wrote Taft to his beloved Nellie after a trip to Washington, "Almost every person I met spoke of my coming there to sit on the Supreme Bench as a certainty." He added wistfully, "I wish I could think so."

Taft Named Governor of Philippines

After the Spanish-American War, the United States acquired the Philippines. Thinking that the war's end would bring independence, a band of Filipinos led by Emilio Aguinaldo fought a long, ugly guerilla war when it became apparent that independence was not forthcoming. As American troops squelched the insurgent movement, President William McKinley realized that the new governor, whom he had yet to appoint, faced a very volatile situation. He turned to William Howard Taft who protested, "I am not the man you want. To begin with, I have never approved of keeping the Philippines." McKinley responded, "I think I can trust the man who didn't want them better than I can the man who did." Thus April 1900 saw the Tafts sailing for the Philippine Islands. After serving for a time as president of the U.S. Philippine Commission, Taft became the first civil governor of the Philippine Islands on Independence Day of 1901.

In the Philippines, Taft not only had to deal with some unhappy natives, but also with a famous general named Douglas MacArthur who often chafed when under civilian control. Concerning the military establishment Taft observed, "They resented our coming and do not enjoy our stay."

Throughout much of his life, Taft coveted an appointment to the Supreme Court. But in October 1902 and again in January of 1903, when President Theodore Roosevelt offered to appoint him to the high court, Taft declined the offer saying, "It has always been my dream to be in the Supreme Court, but . . . I should go straight back to the Philippines" because "those people expect me back and believe I will not desert them." Besides, said Taft, Nellie "was quite disappointed that I should be `shelved' on the bench at my age."

Taft did accept Theodore Roosevelt's March 1903 proposal to join his cabinet, only after being assured that "as secretary of war you would still have the ultimate control of the Philippine situation." Nellie Taft approved, writing that this post was in keeping with "the kind of career I wanted for him and expected him to have." After her husband took office on February 1, 1904, he became responsible for the construction of the Panama Canal.

As a member of the president's official family, the secretary of war not only came to know Theodore Roosevelt better officially, but the two became close friends. Taft proved to be a loyal supporter of the president and his policies.

On the night of the 1904 election Roosevelt had solemnly promised that he would not seek another term. As 1908 neared, he became convinced that his secretary of war should succeed him as chief executive. Although Nellie Taft was delighted with this turn of events, her husband expressed apprehensions and seemed much less ecstatic about the prospect of becoming Theodore Roosevelt's successor. "Politics when I am in it makes me sick," said Taft candidly in 1906.

He Defeats William Jennings Bryan for Presidency

Nevertheless in 1908, Taft was the Republican nominee for president. In some parts of the country his religion became an issue when it became known that Taft was a Unitarian who denied the deity of Jesus Christ. "Think of the United States with a President who does not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, but looks upon our immaculate Savior as a common bastard," exploded the editor of one religious journal. Nonetheless, with the strong endorsement of Theodore Roosevelt, Taft easily defeated William Jennings Bryan in the November election as he garnered 321 electoral votes to 162 for Bryan.

In victory, Taft demonstrated little elation. Said he, "I pinch myself every little while to make myself realize that it is all true. If I were now presiding in the Supreme Court of the United States as chief justice, I should feel entirely at home, but with the trouble of selecting a Cabinet and the difficulties in respect to the revision of the tariff, I feel just like a fish out of water."

Although the new president had indicated that he planned to continue the Progressive programs and policies of his predecessor, he soon alienated progressives in Congress. For some time, reformers had insisted that the consumer would benefit from reduced tariffs. Although Theodore Roosevelt had felt this to be an issue too controversial, Taft called a special session of Congress to consider the matter as soon as he took office. After the House of Representatives had passed a bill with some significant cuts, the more conservative Senate began to dawdle. "You can't cajole these people," advised Vice President James S. Sherman. "My advice is to begin to hit." Sherman urged Taft to pressure recalcitrant senators by delaying "the appointment of postmasters until the bill is passed."

Meanwhile the Senate went about undoing the tariff reform bill. George Mowry says that the end result was "a high-tariff measure" which "if it did anything it helped eastern industry at the expense of the producers of raw material in the West and the South." Already annoyed because President Taft had not opposed the Senate's action more forcefully, Progressives became angrier when on August 5, 1909, Taft signed the measure and then in a speechmaking tour through Wisconsin failed even to mention the name of Republican Robert La Follette, the Badger State's illustrious Progressive senator. Taft compounded his transgression when, in what biographer Henry Pringle called "the most damaging twenty-five words ever uttered, perhaps, by a president of the United States," Taft in Winona, Minnesota, stated, "On the whole, however, I am bound to say that I think the Payne bill is the best bill that the Republican party ever passed." One critic sneered that the tariff bill had put such items as curling stones, teeth, sea moss, canary bird seed, hog bristles, marshmallows, and silk worm eggs within reach of all Americans. Taft later admitted that in his characterization of the tariff "the comparative would have been better description than the superlative."

Progressives became ever more skeptical of Taft's commitment to their goals when he failed to back Progressive efforts to clip the wings of "Uncle Joe" Cannon, the powerful and conservative Speaker of the House. Although inclined at first to support the insurgents in the House of Representatives, Taft ultimately backed away because he thought the speaker "was so strongly entrenched" that any effort to limit his power would come to naught. When a coalition of Democrats and 30 Republicans in a March 1910 marathon session made the "impossible" happen, the Republican president, of course, received no credit.

Because he was not as adept at politics as was his predecessor, Taft never seemed to be appreciated for the things he did accomplish. Biographer Henry Pringle writes that this is not remarkable because "it seemed, at times, as though he had forgotten them himself." For example, although Roosevelt is remembered as the "trust buster," approximately twice as many trust prosecutions were initiated in Taft's one term as in Roosevelt's two.

One of Taft's significant accomplishments was the creation of the Postal Savings plan designed to protect the average citizen's savings. During the Taft years, arbitration treaties were negotiated with France and Britain. The Mann-Elkins Act of 1910 strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission by allowing this agency to suspend railroad rate increases up to ten months, when the commissioners thought the increases to be unjustified. Taft saw the Department of Commerce and Labor divided into two departments; the Federal Children's Bureau was established; both the Sixteenth Amendment allowing a graduated income tax and the Seventeenth Amendment calling for the popular election of senators were adopted; Arizona and New Mexico were admitted as new states; the Mann Act designed to stop white slave traffic gained approval. Taft appointed the progressive Charles E. Hughes to the Supreme Court and vetoed a literacy test for immigrants because he felt it betrayed the sentiments expressed by Emma Lazarus in her sonnet inscribed in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.

Although friction with progressive Republicans in the Congress undoubtedly bothered Taft, the deterioration of the friendship that he had enjoyed with his mentor and friend, Theodore Roosevelt, hurt him even more. Soon after Taft took office, Roosevelt sailed for Africa and Europe because he didn't wish Taft to feel that he was constantly looking over his shoulder. However, Roosevelt adherents would not allow Taft to forget their hero. One jingle expressed their sentiments:

Teddy, come home and blow your horn, The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn. The boy you left to tend the sheep Is under the haystack fast asleep.

After Roosevelt returned home from his overseas odyssey, it became apparent that relations between the two were not the same. When they met on June 30, 1910, at Taft's summer home in Beverly, Massachusetts, Taft felt the chill when, in spite of his protestations, his old friend insisted on calling him "Mr. President." "See here, now, drop the `Mr. President,'" Taft urged. "Not at all," Roosevelt responded. "You must be the President and I am Theodore. It must be that way."

Two years later, the one-time comrades had become bitter enemies. In 1912, both Roosevelt and Taft vied for the Republican presidential nomination. As they fought it out, Taft called Roosevelt a "dangerous egotist" and a "demagogue," while Roosevelt described Taft as a "fathead" and a "flubdub . . . with brains of about three guinea-pig power."

Roosevelt Runs on Bull Moose Ticket

Although Roosevelt did well in states with direct primaries, Taft ultimately won renomination at the Republican convention in Chicago. Later Theodore Roosevelt bolted his party and ran for president on the ticket of the Bull Moose party. In 1912, the Democrats captured the White House as Woodrow Wilson, benefiting from the Republican split, won the election even though he gained only 42% of the popular vote. Almost pathetically, Taft had said on July 22, "I think I might as well give up so far as being a candidate is concerned. There are so many people in the country who don't like me."

In many fairy tales, the hero after experiencing many frustrations finally attains his goal and then lives happily ever after. In a sense, the story of William Howard Taft is that. To a friend Taft confided that he was not "cast down or humiliated" because he had lost the election and that "the truth is I am glad it is all over." Said he, "The nearer I get to the inauguration of my successor, the greater relief I feel."

As his term was ending, Yale University offered him a professorship of law. Wrote historian Judith I. Anderson: "The very moment Professor Wilson became President Wilson, President Taft became Professor Taft." The fact that his weight dropped from 350 to 270 pounds in eight months is one indication that he was much happier. Nellie Taft, too, seemed content. On their wedding anniversary in 1917, she received from her husband a bouquet of flowers with a card: "1886--1917, With love and gratitude for 31 years of unalloyed happiness."

During the post presidential years, Taft and Roosevelt effected a reconciliation. After Roosevelt died on January 5, 1919, Taft wrote, "I want to say . . . how glad I am Theodore and I came together after that long painful interval. Had he died in a hostile state of mind toward me, I would have mourned the fact all my life. I loved him always and cherish his memory."

In 1921, a dream came true when President Warren Harding named Taft chief justice of the Supreme Court. After getting this appointment, Taft reflected, "The truth is that in my present life I don't remember that I ever was president." To an old acquaintance he wrote, "I don't hesitate to say that I would rather have been chief justice than president."

On March 8, 1930, Taft died in Washington, D.C. Whereas as president he had endured severe criticism and sometimes derision, as chief justice he enjoyed the respect of his colleagues. Said Justice Louis D. Brandeis, "It's very difficult for me to understand why a man who is so good as chief justice, in his functions of presiding officer, could have been so bad as president." His colleague Felix Frankfurter had an answer, "He loathed being president and being chief justice was all happiness for him."

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