William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft (1857-1930), as twenty-seventh president of the United States and a chief justice, failed to rise adequately to the challenges of the times, despite his many strong qualities.

William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Sept. 15, 1857, into a family of old New England stock. Both his father and grandfather had served terms as judges, and young Taft aspired to a judicial career. A bright but unimaginative youngster, he attended high school in Cincinnati, and at Yale University he finished second in a graduating class of 121 in 1878. Two years later he graduated from the Cincinnati Law School.

An outsize, congenial young man with a tendency to procrastinate, Taft took an active interest in Republican politics. He was rewarded with appointments to various offices. Between 1880 and 1890 he served successively as assistant prosecuting attorney for Hamilton County, Ohio, collector of internal revenue for Cincinnati, and judge of the Superior Court of Ohio. Named solicitor general of the United States in 1890, he distinguished himself for his thorough preparation and won 15 of the first 18 cases he argued in the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, in 1886, Taft had married Helen Herron of Cincinnati. Eventually they had three children. A driving, ambitious woman, she wanted her husband to follow a political rather than a legal career. When a Federal judgeship opened in 1891, she protested that his appointment would "put and end to all your opportunities … of being thrown with bigwigs." And she twice influenced him to reject offers of a Supreme Court seat during Theodore Roosevelt's first administration in order to maintain his availability for the presidency.

Federal Service

Disregarding his wife's admonitions, Taft accepted appointment to the Sixth Circuit Court in 1892. Though he again distinguished himself for thoroughness and technical command of the law, he was inhibited by his lack of imagination. Yet he was in no sense a reactionary and in some respects not even a conservative. He broke new ground in employers' liability cases and revitalized the Sherman Antitrust Act. He also upheld labor's right to strike. He disapproved of secondary boycotts, however, and by insisting on enforcing the injunctive power he acquired a somewhat exaggerated reputation as an antilabor judge. His written opinions, like his oral arguments, were learned but verbose.

In 1899 Taft turned down the presidency of Yale University, partly because he believed his Unitarianism would offend traditionalists. Then, in March 1900, he reluctantly acceded to President William McKinley's request that he become president of the Philippine Commission. The 4 most creative years of his life followed. Overriding the will of the autocratic military governor, Gen. Arthur MacArthur, he instituted civil government and became in 1901 the archipelago's first civil governor.

In the Philippines, Taft established an educational system, built roads and harbors, and negotiated the purchase of 400, 000 acres from the Dominican friars for resale on generous terms to the Filipinos. He also pushed limited self-government rapidly. Taft's conviction that the Philippines should be administered in the interests of its citizens, coupled with his open, conciliatory presence, won him respect and affection. And though he failed to prevent the islands from entering into an economic relationship with the United States which adversely affected their development in the long run, his tenure was probably the most enlightened colonial administration to that time.

Secretary of War

On Feb. 1, 1904, Taft succeeded Elihu Root as U.S. secretary of war. The duties again proved surprisingly congenial, largely because he became one of President Roosevelt's most intimate advisers and his principal troubleshooter. Continuing to supervise administration of the Philippines, he assumed responsibility for starting construction of the Panama Canal and represented the President on various missions. His most important mission was to Japan; it culminated in the secret recognition of Japan's suzerainty over Korea. He also helped suppress a threatened revolution in Cuba in 1906.

Although Taft still yearned to join the Supreme Court, he allowed his wife and brothers to kindle presidential aspirations. Impressed by Taft's "absolutely unflinching rectitude" and "literally dauntless courage and willingness to bear responsibility, " as he phrased it, Roosevelt decided in 1907 to make Taft his successor as president. Both men believed mistakenly at the time that they agreed totally on public policy. Yet by February 1908, after several thunderous messages to Congress had revealed the real depth of Roosevelt's progressivism, his wife urged him not to "make any more speeches on the Roosevelt policies."

Nevertheless, the presidential campaign of 1908 was waged mainly on the "Roosevelt policies." Though Taft defeated William Jennings Bryan handily, his plurality dropped about 1, 500, 000 votes below Roosevelt's in 1904. Moreover, the election of numerous Progressive Republicans and Democrats shifted the balance in Congress.

The Presidency

Whatever Taft thought about Roosevelt's objectives, he never had approved of his freewheeling, often extralegal, procedures. This was especially true of conservation, a field in which Roosevelt and his subordinates had consistently interpreted the law loosely in order to protect the public interest. Taft decided, accordingly, that his mission was to consolidate rather than push forward—to give the Roosevelt reforms, as he privately said, "the sanction of law." To this end he surrounded himself with lawyers. At the same time, he underestimated both the temper of the times and the zeal of the Progressive Republicans in Congress. Worse still, he proved incapable of giving the nation the kind of moral, intellectual, and political leadership it had grown accustomed to under Roosevelt.

Taft's troubles started early. True at first to his campaign promises, he called a special session of Congress to revise the tariff. The resultant bill was not a bad measure by Republican standards, but it failed abysmally to meet expectations. Disguising his disappointment, Taft called it "the best bill that the party has ever passed" and signed it into law. This alienated many insurgent Republicans, most of whom were already seething over his refusal to support their effort to reduce the powers of Joseph "Uncle Joe" Cannon, the czarlike Speaker of the House.

Taft's replacement of Roosevelt's secretary of the interior contributed to the polarization of the party. The new secretary, Richard A. Ballinger, was a moderate conservationist and a strict legal constructionist in the manner of Taft himself." I do not hesitate to say, " the President wrote, that the presidential power to withdraw public lands from private use "was exercised far beyond legal limitation under Secretary Garfield." With Taft's endorsement, Ballinger insisted on opening much valuable land to private entry while the Geological Survey completed surveys. Angered by this and other inhibiting policies, Roosevelt's intimate friend, Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, finally charged Ballinger with a "giveaway" of Alaskan mineral lands to the Guggenheim-Morgan financial interests. Taft thereupon removed Pinchot from office. Although Ballinger was eventually exonerated, Taft was fatally, and somewhat unfairly, stamped as anticonservationist.

Ironically, Taft's relentless prosecution of trusts further exacerbated his relations with Roosevelt. Unlike the former president, he believed that dissolution rather than regulation was the preferred solution. He gave Attorney General George W. Wickersham free rein to institute proceedings, and by the end of 4 years almost twice as many actions had been initiated as in 7½ years under Roosevelt. Among these were proceedings against the U.S. Steel Corporation, which had absorbed the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company during the Panic of 1907 with Roosevelt's tacit approval.

In Congress, meanwhile, a coalition of Progressive Republicans and Democrats drove through half a dozen reform measures. Some were supported warmly by Taft, some halfheartedly, and others not at all. But all owed their passage to the Progressive ferment Roosevelt had done so much to create during his presidency and after his return from abroad in 1910. They included amendments for an income tax and the direct election of senators, the Mann-Elkins Act to increase the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission, creation of the Children's Bureau, a corporation tax, safety standards for mines, Postal Savings and Parcel Post, and workmen's compensation legislation.

Foreign Affairs

Taft's conduct of foreign policy was governed by an uncritical extension of the concepts behind the Open-Door Notes of 1899 and 1900. Disregarding Roosevelt's warning that the United States should accept Japanese preeminence in eastern Asia and abandon commercial aspirations in Manchuria and North China, he pursued a policy of "active intervention to secure for our merchandise and our capitalists opportunity for profitable investment."

In the Caribbean, Taft was even more ingenious than Roosevelt in devising means to protect the Panama Canal. He put American troops into Nicaragua in 1912 to install and maintain in power a conservative, pro-United States party. And in what came to be termed "dollar diplomacy, " he encouraged American capital to displace European capital elsewhere in the region. The end result was security for the canal and ultraconservative and often repressive government for the Caribbean peoples.

By 1912 Taft had so isolated himself from his party's Progressive and was under such heavy fire from Roosevelt and Senator Robert M. La Follette that the Progressives were prepared to support either Roosevelt or La Follette for the presidential nomination. Taft lost to the former president by more than 2 to 1 in the 13 state primaries that winter and spring. However, his control of Republican party machinery gave him enough delegates to win renomination in convention. Embittered further by Roosevelt's decision to run on the Progressive ticket, Taft waged an angry, defensive, and ineffectual campaign. He finished behind Woodrow Wilson and Roosevelt.

Taft's best qualities, especially his capacity for disinterested public service, again became dominant after he left the White House and accepted the Kent chair of constitutional law at Yale. His views on World War I were closer to President Wilson's than to those of interventionist Republicans like Roosevelt and Lodge, and he generously backed the President during the period of neutrality. His work as joint chairman of the War Labor Board contributed greatly to the relatively smooth course of labor-management relations during the war. He afterward gave broad support to Wilson's plan for the League of Nations Covenant.

Chief Justice

On June 30, 1921, President Warren G. Harding fulfilled Taft's "heart's desire" by appointing him chief justice. Taft brought to his new position a consuming belief in the rule of law, an unshakable conviction that the protection of property rights was crucial to orderly government, and a driving determination to perfect the administration of justice. He further brought a fierce resolve to mold the Court in his own moderately conservative image. In 1916 he had bitterly opposed Wilson's nomination of Louis D. Brandeis. Now, as chief justice, he discouraged Harding from considering men like Benjamin Cardozo, Learned Hand, and Henry Stimson because they might "herd" with the liberals, Holmes and Brandeis. Yet, he also said, it would be equally unwise to have too many men as reactionary as James McReynolds. He was largely responsible for the selection of Pierce Butler in 1922.

As chief justice, Taft compiled a mixed record. Although he succeeded in massing the Court along generally conservative lines, few of his opinions ring down through the years. One exception was his dissent in 1923 from the majority finding in the Adkins case that a minimum-wage act interfered with freedom of contract. Otherwise, as a careful student of Taft's chief justiceship writes, "Taft endorsed decisions, sometimes writing the majority opinion, that seemed to fasten both the national government and the states in a strait jacket." He wrote the majority opinion in the second child-labor case. He ruled, again for the majority, that a Kansas statute for compulsory arbitration of wage disputes was unconstitutional. And he declared, once more for the conservative majority, that an Arizona limitation on the use of injunctions against labor violated due process. He also held in the famous Coronado case that labor unions could be sued under the antitrust laws.

Conversely, Taft sanctioned the exercise of broad regulatory powers by the Federal government under the commerce clause. He also sustained the presidential power to remove executive officers.

As an administrator, Taft ranks with Melville W. Fuller and Charles Evans Hughes; he was notably successful in effecting administrative reforms. He wrote more opinions than any other member of his Court, expedited the hearing of cases, and won congressional authorization to create a conference of senior circuit judges. He also shaped and influenced passage of the Judge's Bill of 1925, which gave the Court wide discretionary power and enabled it to reduce the number of unimportant cases that came before it. In addition, Taft was preeminently responsible for the decision to construct the Supreme Court Building. However, he made little enduring impression upon constitutional law. He retired in February 1930 and died in Washington on March 30.

Taft's reputation among contemporary historians is somewhat higher as president and somewhat lower as chief justice than it was in his lifetime. More than any other major figure of his times, perhaps, he exemplified the conservative virtues and weaknesses. Yearning always "for the absolute"—for a system of law devoid of vagueness—he failed in the end to find or to fashion it. He also failed in the main to adjust creatively to the social and economic changes induced by the industrialization of the nation.

Further Reading

The standard work on Taft is Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft (2 vols., 1939). A brief account of Taft's presidential years is in George E. Mowry, The Era of Theodore Roosevelt, 1900-1912 (1958). Alpheus Thomas Mason's penetrating study William Howard Taft: Chief Justice (1965) offers a revealing account of Taft's chief justiceship. Taft's relations with Roosevelt are related in detail in William H. Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt (1961; new rev. ed. 1963), and William Manners, TR and Will: A Friendship That Split the Republican Party (1969). See also Archie Butt, Taft and Roosevelt: The Intimate Letters of Archie Butt (2 vols., 1930). James Penick, Jr., Progressive Politics and Conservation: The Ballinger-Pinchot Affair (1968), sheds new light on that episode. □

Taft, William Howard (b. Cincinnati, Ohio, 15 Sep. 1857; d. Washington, D.C., 8 Mar. 1930; interred Arlington National Cemetery), president of the United States, 1909–1913; chief justice, 1921–1930. William Howard Taft, the only figure in American history to serve both as president of the United States and chief justice of its highest court, was born in Cincinnati on 15 September 1857, the son and grandson of judges. Ample in girth as well as intellect, he possessed amiability rather than political ambition. Taft was attracted not to politics, but to law in general, and judging in particular, throughout his long and varied career. Though capable as a lawyer, he achieved his greatest fulfillment as a judge. He served in a number of political capacities, including the highest political office in this country, but his calling remained the judiciary. “I love judges, and I love courts. They are my ideals, that typify on earth what we shall meet hereafter in heaven under a just God.” And toward the end of his life, when, after losing reelection to the presidency, he ultimately attained his lifelong goal of the chief justice's seat on the Court, an observer described him on the bench “as one of the high gods of the world, a smiling Buddha, placid, wise, gentle, sweet” (J. Anderson, William Howard Taft, 1981, p. 259).

Taft graduated from Yale in 1878, and after attending the University of Cincinnati law school, was admitted to the Ohio bar two years later. But his private practice was a short one. The son of a family well known in Ohio politics, he was appointed to the Ohio Superior Court in 1887. Within two years, he tried to have his name submitted to President Benjamin Harrison for a vacancy on the United States Supreme Court. Although he did not receive the appointment, the influence exercised on his behalf was sufficient for Harrison to name the thirty‐two‐year‐old Ohio judge as solicitor general. The required relocation to Washington afforded Taft the opportunity to meet lawyers and political figures on the national scene. Taft was not an eloquent advocate, but his performance as solicitor general was more than competent; he won sixteen out of the eighteen cases that he argued before the Court. In

1892, Harrison appointed him a federal judge for the Sixth Circuit.

Taft, William Howard

Taft served on the circuit bench for eight years. Many of the cases before him concerned organized labor. Throughout his later career, especially during his presidential term, Taft would be severely criticized for his hostility to the working man. In fact, examination of his federal judicial career indicates ambivalence rather than outright antagonism toward labor. He had no doubt, for example, that workers had the right to organize into unions and strike when they considered it necessary. Moreover, he ruled in one case that it was unlawful for owners to force their workers to accept nonliability clauses as a condition of employment, a device popular among employers for avoiding liability for accidents. Taft's ruling was later reversed by the Supreme Court.

On the other hand, a strike was not the same thing as a boycott; Taft regularly enjoined the latter. While he occasionally supported the workers' position in a particular case, he remained staunchly conservative in his attitudes toward property rights. And, like many conservatives, he reacted with outrage to violence resulting from conflict between labor and management. During the Pullman strike in 1894, Taft wrote to his wife that “it will be necessary for the military to kill some of the mob. … They have only killed six … as yet. This is hardly enough to make an impression.”

Taft found his years as a federal judge extremely fulfilling. There was always the possibility of advancement to the high court, a goal not shared by Taft's wife, who consistently urged her husband to venture into fields with greater potential for political rewards. When in 1900 President William McKinley named him chair of the Philippine Commission, pressure from Helen Taft, rather than his own preference, proved persuasive. He remained in the islands for four years, ultimately serving as civil governor, a position that he considered similar to his earlier judicial functions. So absorbing did he find his island responsibilities that on at least two separate occasions between 1901 and 1904, Taft declined appointments to the Supreme Court, choosing instead to remain in the Philippines. Finally in 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt recalled him to Washington as secretary of war. His close association with the president, together with Helen Taft's vigorous encouragement and Roosevelt's stated determination not to seek reelection in 1908, all combined to propel a reluctant Taft into the White House.

Had Roosevelt been able to offer Taft the position of chief justice, subsequent events might have been very different. Neither interested in politics nor astute in the ways of politicians, Taft found his four years as chief executive a frustrating and unrewarding experience. He was, however, able to make six appointments to the Supreme Court, more than any other one‐term president in American history. He even named a new chief justice in place of Melville Fuller, commenting with real regret that “the one place in the government which I would have liked to fill myself I am forced to give to another.” Indeed, Taft's self‐interest in this matter colored his conduct.

Ultimately faced with two choices, both justices currently on the Court, either Edward D. White or Charles Evans Hughes, Taft ultimately named White, even though White was a Democrat, and though Taft respected Hughes more as a judge. But White was a dozen years older than Taft, and seventeen years older than Hughes. Refusing to abandon his goal of ultimately serving as chief justice, Taft realized that given the vicissitudes of time, he might yet have a chance of succeeding White. Actuarial considerations may thus have been the dominant factor in White's ultimate selection.

Taft expected defeat in the bitter three‐way 1912 presidential campaign and left the presidency to Woodrow Wilson with relief. Offered the Kent Chair in Constitutional Law at Yale Law School, Taft commented jocularly that a chair would not be adequate, but perhaps “a sofa of law” might suffice. He adjusted to the life of an academician with an extensive and, for the time, lucrative lecture schedule. He remained interested in national affairs and strongly endorsed Wilson's League of Nations, even as he severely criticized the embattled president's political intransigence. Always a loyal Republican, he supported Warren G. Harding with consistency if not enthusiasm. After Harding's triumphant election, the new chief executive offered to place Taft on the bench, but the former president replied that he would only accept the position of chief justice.

With an eagerness to succeed his own nominee as chief justice that was understandable if not unseemly, Taft might have pondered Thomas Jefferson's famous lament about justices on the high court: “few die and none resign.” Although he had a few anxious months owing to Chief Justice White's seeming longevity, ultimately Taft's calculations concerning the length of the chief's term were correct. To some extent in 1908, but even more so in 1921, Taft happened to be in the right place for the right position with the right president at the right time. Nominated chief justice by Harding on 30 June 1921, the former president was confirmed later that same day by the Senate, which did not even bother to refer the matter to committee.

As chief justice, Taft was distinguished less by doctrinal than by departmental innovation. Especially in the first half of his nine‐year term, while he remained in relatively sound health, he was the most active chief justice in court administrative matters thus far in the history of that tribunal. Taft did not hesitate to use many of his old presidential and congressional contacts to further his goals for the Court. His skillful combination of informal lobbying, matched with a sound understanding of the needs of the federal judicial system, led to congressional enactment of the Judiciary Act of 1925, which gave the justices almost total discretion over their docket. This discretionary flexibility continues to the present, allowing the Court, with very few exceptions, to decide what cases need to be resolved and in what context. Later, Taft employed these same skillful techniques to insure congressional support for the construction of a building appropriate to the Court's role in American constitutional adjudication. He did not live to see it completed, but the structure remains one fitting tribute to Taft's vision of the Court.

As chief justice, Taft emphasized teamwork among his associates. He did not appreciate frequent dissents (especially those replete with lengthy footnotes that seemed to emanate too often from Justice Louis Brandeis) because he thought they lessened the effectiveness of the Court's work. His reluctance to see disagreement within the Court made public is reflected in the fact that in his eight full terms he dissented about twenty times and submitted written dissents in only four cases. Yet he wrote 249 opinions on behalf of the Court.

Taft's conservative tendencies demonstrated during his first judicial career were very much in evidence during his second. In 1921, speaking for a bare majority of the Court, he struck down an Arizona statute that limited use of injunctions during labor disputes. Conduct that strikers claimed to be sanctioned by the statute was, according to Taft in Truax v. Corrigan (1921), “moral coercion by illegal annoyance and obstruction, and it thus was plainly a conspiracy” (p. 328). Less than six months later, he held a federal statute dealing with child labor unconstitutional. Earlier, Congress had enacted a similar law, based upon its power to regulate commerce, only to see it struck down by the Court (see Commerce Power). Its second attempt was based not on the Commerce Clause, but rather on the taxing power; yet Taft saw no difference worth discussing (see Taxing and Spending Clause). In reality, the act was a penalty, Taft concluded in Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co. (1922), because in seeking “to do the same thing, and the effort must be equally futile” (p. 39).

Taft was nevertheless capable of unusual doctrinal flexibility. In one of his rare dissents, he criticized the majority's rejection of a minimum wage for women. Sounding more like Justice Holmes than himself, Taft wrote in Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923), “it is not the function of this Court to hold congressional acts invalid simply because they are passed to carry out economic views which the Court believes to be unwise or unsound” (p. 562). When the Court unanimously rejected a congressional attempt to regulate commodity futures trading through the taxing power, in the course of his opinion, Taft advised Congress to reenact the measure based on its plenary authority to regulate commerce. Congress did so, and with the sections regulating futures trading still intact, Taft upheld the law. Indeed, Taft's opinions for the Court dealing with the national commerce power tended to be sweeping in their endorsement of congressional authority. If they represented a conservative viewpoint, it was a dynamic conservatism—restricted only by Taft's insistence that the “sanctity and inviolability of judicial decisions” from his court be unimpaired.

By 1928, Taft's health was failing. Although he sat in his accustomed chair for the opening of the 1929 October term, illness forced him to resign in February 1930. He died barely a month later and was the first president to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. If not a distinguished judge in his doctrines and opinions, Taft was an outstanding judicial administrator. Especially in the first half of his term, no chief justice thus far in our history matched his active role in court administration, and his leadership in bringing about legislation gave needed judicial discretion to the Court to control its docket. Taft's leadership helped modernize a tribunal badly in need of such change. In retrospect, however, too often his decisions reflected a fear of change rather than its necessary facilitation.

See also Chief Justice, Office of the.

Bibliography

Alpheus Thomas Mason , The Supreme Court from Taft to Warren (1958).
Alpheus Thomas Mason , William Howard Taft: Chief Justice (1964).
Walter F. Murphy , In His Own Image: Mr. Chief Justice Taft and Supreme Court Appointments, in The Supreme Court and the Constitution, edited by Philip Kurland (1965).
Hentry F. Pringle , The Life and Times of William Howard Taft, 2 vols. (reprint, 1964).

Jonathan Lurie

TAFT, WILLIAM HOWARD

William Howard Taft is the only person to serve as both president and Supreme Court chief justice of the United States. A gifted judge and administrator, Taft helped modernize the way the U.S. Supreme Court conducted its business and was the driving force behind the construction of the Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C.

Taft was born on September 15, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father, alphonso taft, served as secretary of war and attorney general in President Ulysses S. Grant's administration. Taft graduated from Yale University in 1878 and earned a law degree from Cincinnati Law College (now University of Cincinnati College of Law) in 1880. He established a law practice in Cincinnati and served as assistant prosecuting attorney for Hamilton County, Ohio, from 1881 to 1883. Taft was assistant county solicitor from 1885 to 1887 and a superior court judge from 1887 to 1890.

Though only thirty-three years old, Taft lobbied President benjamin harrison for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1890. Although Harrison demurred, he did make Taft U.S. solicitor general, the person who argues on behalf of the federal government before the Supreme Court. Taft won sixteen of the eighteen cases he argued before 1892, when Harrison appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

"The ordinary result of human punishment is that those near to the criminal, or dependent upon him, suffer in many cases more than he does."
—William Howard Taft

The jurisdiction of the Sixth Circuit included Chicago and other industrialized cities of the Midwest, which were the scenes of conflict between labor unions and large manufacturing

companies. Taft, like most conservative judges of his time, upheld the use of the labor injunction to prevent labor strikes and violence. The use of the injunction removed an important bargaining tool and seriously weakened labor unions. Taft, however, did believe workers had a right to organize and could legally strike, if the strike was peaceful.

Taft left the court in 1900 at the request of President william mckinley. In the aftermath of the spanish-american war (1898), the United States had taken possession of the Philippine Islands. Taft was chosen to lead a commission that would help establish a civil government in the islands and end military rule. In 1901 he became the first civilian governor of the Philippines and drew praise from the Philippine people for his administration. Taft reluctantly returned to Washington in 1904 at the request of President theodore roosevelt to become secretary of war. As secretary, Taft supervised the construction of the Panama Canal, established the U.S. Canal Zone, and helped negotiate a treaty that ended the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.

When Roosevelt declined to run for another term in 1908, Taft was nominated as the Republican candidate. He easily defeated the Democratic candidate, william jennings bryan, in the general election and assumed office in 1909 as Roosevelt's political heir. Taft's administration proved to be lackluster at best, however. Though he was an able administrator, he lacked the political skills necessary to succeed in Washington. He alienated Roosevelt and other liberal Republicans by appeasing conservative Republicans, splitting the party in the process.

Taft did carry on Roosevelt's "trust-busting" initiatives, attacking business trusts under the sherman anti-trust act (15 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq.) and supporting the Mann-Elkins Act of 1910 (49 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq.), which gave more power to the interstate commerce commission. He also established the labor department. In foreign affairs Taft adopted a policy of "dollar diplomacy" as an economic substitute for military aid to underdeveloped countries.

Taft's political downfall began in 1910 with his support of Speaker of the House of Representatives Joseph Cannon, a conservative Republican who ran the House with an iron fist. Liberals had counted on Taft to help them break Cannon's power, but he refused. When Taft

approved the development of Alaskan coal resources, he drew public criticism from Gifford A. Pinchot of the Forestry Service, a promoter of conservation and Roosevelt's close ally.

In 1912 Roosevelt ran against Taft for the Republican presidential nomination. When Taft won the endorsement, Roosevelt formed the progressive party, effectively guaranteeing that Democrat woodrow wilson would be elected president. Taft carried only Utah and Vermont and split the Republican vote with Roosevelt, allowing Wilson to win handily.

After leaving the presidency, Taft became a law professor at Yale University. During world war i he served on the National War Labor Board and advocated the establishment of the league of nations and U.S. participation in that world organization.

In 1921 President warren g. harding appointed Taft chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. On a Court dominated by conservatives, Taft usually went along with his brethren in striking down laws that sought to regulate business and labor practices.

Taft distinguished himself more as an administrator than as a judge. He developed and lobbied for the judiciary act of 1925, 43 Stat. 936, which gave the Court almost complete discretion over its docket. Under Taft the Court developed the writ of certiorari process, whereby a party files a petition seeking review by the Court. Because only a small fraction of these petitions are granted, the process has dramatically reduced the work of the Court. Taft also lobbied Congress for funds to construct a separate building for the Court. Although he did not live to see its completion, the Supreme Court Building, which was designed by cass gilbert, proved to be a lasting monument to Taft's administrative talents.

Taft's health began to fail in 1928, and he was forced to resign from the Court in February 1930. He died on March 8, 1930, in Washington, D.C.

further readings

Anderson, Donald F. 2000. "Building National Consensus: The Career of William Howard Taft. University of Cincinnati Law Review 68 (winter).

Burton, David H. 1998. Taft, Holmes, and the 1920s Court: An Appraisal. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press.

Taft, William H. 2001. The Collected Works of William Howard Taft. Ed. by David H. Burton. Athens: Ohio Univ. Press.

TAFT, WILLIAM HOWARD 1857-1930

Secretary of war, 1904-1908

President of the united states, 1909-1913

Reluctant Politician

Few Americans had heard of William Howard Taft when President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him to replace Elihu Root as secretary of war in 1904. In 1908, when conservative Republicans championed him as their presidential candidate, Taft's family and friends had to persuade him to run. He aspired to a seat on the Supreme Court, but his wife had greater ambitions for him. A large man given to lethargy, he did not have the drive or the skill to be a truly successful politician. "Politics, when I am in it, makes me sick," he exclaimed.

Background

Born on 15 September 1857 into a midwestern, staunchly Republican family of moderate wealth and some legal and political distinction near Cincinnati, Ohio, William Howard Taft was indoctrinated early with the conservative attitudes frequently found among members of the upper middle class. At Yale University he was exposed to the laissez-faire teachings of William Graham Sumner. After graduating as salutatorian from Yale University in 1878, he attended Cincinnati Law School, graduating in 1880. Except for his work in his father's law firm and as a part-time newspaper reporter in 1880 and his private law practice in 1883-1885, all the positions Taft held until he was elected president were appointive: assistant prosecuting attorney of Hamilton County, Ohio (1881-1882); collector of internal revenue for the First Ohio District (1882-1883); assistant county solicitor of Hamilton County (1885-1887); judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati (1887-1890); solicitor general of the United States (1890-1892); U.S. Circuit Court judge (1892-1900); president of the Second Philippine Commission (1900-1901); first civil governor of the Philippines (1901-1904); and secretary of war (1904-1908).

A Cabinet Post

Having already turned down an appointment to the Supreme Court, the job he really wanted, because of his sense of obligation to complete the work he had started as civil governor of the Philippines, Taft accepted the post of secretary of war in 1904 only because it would allow him to continue exerting control over activities in the Philippines. Powerful conservative Republicans welcomed his appearance in the cabinet as a counterbalance to Roosevelt's progressive leanings. Based on his success as civil governor of the Philippines, they bandied about his name as a possible challenger to Roosevelt for the Republican presidential nomination in 1904, but Roosevelt's popularity and his control of the party apparatus squelched the idea. Taft did a commendable job in the cabinet, traveling the world on missions to Japan, the Vatican, Cuba, China, Russia, and the Panama Canal Zone. Ignoring Taft's recent statements, which made him sound like a Roosevelt Republican, conservatives embraced him as the nominee in 1908 to block Roosevelt from seeking a third term, an event they feared even though the president had promised not to do so after the 1904 election. Elected to the presidency by a comfortable margin, Taft turned back toward his conservative roots just as the country veered to the left. His battles with the Republican insurgents on issues such as tariff reform and conservation split the party and opened the way for the Democrats to win the White House in 1912.

Judicial Temperament

As a judge Taft was a moderate on labor and social issues and a conservative on financial ones, and his judicial background influenced his philosophy about the role of the chief executive. He rejected Roosevelt's stretching and testing the limits of executive action, and he resented Roosevelt's fostering of this practice in his subordinates. As he wrote after his single term as president, "the President can exercise no power which cannot be reasonably and fairly traced to some specific grant of power or justly implied or included within such express grant as necessary and proper to its exercise. Such specific grant must be either in the Constitution or in an act of Congress passed in pursuance thereof." This philosophy was more in line with the nineteenth-century "caretaker" concept of the presidency than with ideas about the office in the Progressive Era. Yet Taft also met congressional attempts to encroach on his executive power with stiff rebukes. In spite of his conservative outlook, Taft's judicial approach allowed him to do more "trust busting" than the "Trust Buster" himself, to with-draw more public lands from development in four years than Roosevelt had in eight, and to enact more social-welfare legislation than his two predecessors. During World War I Taft served as head of the quasi-judicial War Labor Board. In 1921 Taft realized his lifelong dream when he was named Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a post he held until his death on 8 March 1930. As chief justice he again proved somewhat more progressive than conservative, thus remaining something of an enigma in American political history.

Source:

Paolo E. Coletta, The Presidency of William Howard Taft (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1973).

William Howard Taft 1857–1930, 27th President of the United States (1909–13) and 10th chief justice of the United States (1921–30), b. Cincinnati.

Early Career

After graduating (1878) from Yale, he attended Cincinnati Law School. He received his law degree in 1880. He became a Cincinnati lawyer and soon had political posts as assistant prosecuting attorney for Hamilton co. (1881–83), assistant county solicitor (1885–87), and judge of the superior court of Ohio (1887–90). He became nationally prominent as a figure in Republican politics in 1890, when President Benjamin Harrison chose him as U.S. Solicitor General.

After service as a federal circuit judge (1892–1900) and as dean of the Cincinnati law school (1898–1900), he was appointed (1900) head of the commission sent to organize civil government in the Philippines, and he was named first civil governor of the Philippine Islands; he did much to better relations between Filipinos and Americans. In 1904 his friend President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Taft Secretary of War. Taft became a close adviser to the President and was prominent in Latin American affairs, conducting the delicate negotiations attending U.S. intervention in Cuba in 1906.

Presidency

Roosevelt chose Taft as his successor, and the Republican party named him as presidential candidate in the election of 1908, in which he defeated William Jennings Bryan . He was expected to continue Roosevelt's policies, and to a large extent he did. Trusts were vigorously prosecuted under the Sherman Antitrust Act ; the Interstate Commerce Commission was strengthened by the Mann-Elkins Act (1910); and Taft's Latin American policy, known as "dollar diplomacy," was to an extent only an enlargement of Roosevelt's Panama policy and the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine . The emphasis in all these policies had, however, changed. In Latin America, for instance, the accent was on protection of property and interests of Americans abroad rather than on national interest. Members of the Republican party who favored progressive policies were increasingly restive, and the Insurgents movement grew strong.

The administration made positive achievements in the inauguration of the postal savings bank (1910) and the parcel-post system (1912), and the creation of the Dept. of Labor (1911). Nevertheless, Taft was generally at odds with the progressive elements in his party: he failed to support the Insurgents' attempt to oust the dictatorial speaker of the House of Representatives, Joseph Cannon ; he favored the Payne-Aldrich tariff , a high-tariff measure that was denounced by progressive Republicans; and he supported Richard Ballinger against Gifford Pinchot in the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy.

Meanwhile, Taft's relations with Roosevelt deteriorated, and the former President joined the opposition to Taft. In 1912, Roosevelt fought vigorously for the Republican presidential nomination. When he failed and Taft got the nomination, Roosevelt headed the Progressive party and ran in the election as the Progressive (popularly called the Bull Moose) candidate. The Republican vote was split, and the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson , won.

Later Life

Taft retired from public life and taught law (1912–21) at Yale. He was cochairman (1918–19) of the War Labor Conference in World War I. In 1921, President Harding appointed him chief justice. His chief contribution to the Supreme Court was his administrative efficiency.

Bibliography

Taft's writings include The United States and Peace (1914) and Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers (1916). See Taft and Roosevelt: The Intimate Letters of Archie Butt (1930, repr. 1971); biographies by H. F. Pringle (1939, repr. 1964), J. I. Anderson (1981), and J. C. Casey (1989); A. T. Mason, William Howard Taft, Chief Justice (1965); P. E. Coletta, The Presidency of William Howard Taft (1973).

Taft, William Howard (1857–1930), twenty‐seventh president of the United States, chief justice of the United States.A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Taft graduated from Yale and the Cincinnati Law School. He married Helen Herron in 1886. After a legal career in Ohio including three years as a superior court judge, he was named solicitor general of the Justice Department in 1890 and became a federal circuit judge in 1892. President William McKinley appointed Taft to head the Philippine Commission in 1900, in which capacity he proved an effective colonial administrator. Three years later, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him secretary of war. In 1908, having won the Republican nomination for president as Roosevelt's designated successor, Taft defeated the Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan.

The rotund and lawyerlike Taft did not enjoy a happy presidency. Lacking Roosevelt's sure political touch, he had poor press relations and gravitated toward the conservative wing of his party in an era of reform. He proved unable to satisfy Republican Progressives who wanted more of the political and economic reform of the Roosevelt years. His mishandling of the Payne‐Aldrich Tariff in 1909 alienated advocates of lower customs duties; the Ballinger‐Pinchot Controversy over conservation strained his friendship with Roosevelt. Republican losses in the 1910 elections reflected voter unhappiness with the administration.

During his last two years in the White House, Taft unsuccessfully pursued a reciprocal trade agreement with Canada and international arbitration treaties. Meanwhile, his relations with Roosevelt deteriorated. By early 1912, the former president was openly maneuvering to supplant Taft as the Republican nominee. A fierce struggle ensued in which Taft's command of the machinery of the Republican party enabled him to repel Roosevelt's challenge. Bitter over his defeat, Roosevelt bolted the GOP and started a third party. After a desultory campaign against both Roosevelt and the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, Taft came in third in the popular vote and won the electoral votes of only Vermont and Utah.

Out of office, Taft taught at Yale Law School and remained active behind the scenes in Republican politics. During World War I he served on the National War Labor Board. He advocated world organization through the League to Enforce Peace. After the Republicans under Warren G. Harding regained the White House in 1921, Taft became the chief justice of the United States. Happy at last in a position that suited him, Taft presided over the Supreme Court in an harmonious fashion, he played a large role in the selection of Supreme Court justices during his tenure and improved many of the Court's working procedures. His votes on particular cases reflected the conservatism of his later years, especially on such issues as the rights of labor unions and efforts to curb the power of corporations. Taft's presidency had creditable achievements, but his place between Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson has consigned him to the ranks of less‐than‐successful chief executives.
See also Conservation Movement; Federal Government, Executive Branch: The Presidency; Philippines; Progressive Era; Tariffs.

Bibliography

Henry F. Pringle , The Life and Times of William Howard Taft 2 vols., 1939.
Lewis L. Gould , Reform and Regulation: American Politics from Roosevelt to Wilson, 3d. ed., 1996.

Lewis L. Gould

Taft, William Howard (1857–1930)27th president of the United States, born in Cincinnati, Ohio. Taft came from a politically active family; his father was secretary of war under President Ulysses S. Grant. Taft studied law and also entered Republican party politics while still young; he was named a judge on the superior court of Ohio in 1887 and elected to the position the following year; he was appointed solicitor general by President Benjamin Harrison in 1890 and named to the Sixth District federal court in 1892. In 1900 President William McKinley appointed him to head the Philippine Commission; Taft became civil governor of the Philippines the following year. During his four years in the Philippines Taft proved a gifted administrator; he dealt fairly with the Philippine population and materially improved their standard of living. In 1904 Taft declined offers of a Supreme Court appointment but agreed to become secretary of war to President Theodore Roosevelt. Taft developed a close and trusting relationship with Roosevelt and became his logical successor; he easily won the presidency in 1908, defeating William Jennings Bryan by a 2-to-1 margin in the Electoral College. Taft's rejection of Roosevelt's progressive, reform-minded cabinet rapidly cooled their relationship; Taft held a more limited view of presidential power than his predecessor and differed with him on policy areas, including preservation of the protective tariff and conservation. As relations between Taft and Roosevelt deteriorated and the Republicans suffered losses in Congress in 1910, Roosevelt decided to run for president in 1912 and, after losing out at the Republican convention, bolted the party; in a bitterly fought campaign, Woodrow Wilson, the Democrat, emerged victorious, with Roosevelt second, and Taft far behind, carrying only Vermont and Utah, for a total of 8 electoral votes. Taft's presidential record included some notable successes, including initiation of constitutional amendments in favor of an income tax and direct election of senators. After leaving the presidency, Taft taught law at Yale, lobbied for a League of Nations, and, in 1920, was appointed to the Supreme Court, where he was an effective chief justice who greatly improved the efficiency and coordination of the court; his votes on the Court were largely but not entirely conservative and anti-labor; he did support increased federal regulation of interstate commerce and a minimum wage for women. He served until 1930, when he retired because of ill health.

Taft's loss in the popular vote in the presidential election was the worst ever suffered by an incumbent president.

Taft, William Howard (b. 15 Sept. 1857, d. 8 Mar. 1930). 27th US President 1909–13 Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, into a wealthy local family, he was a gifted lawyer who became US Solicitor-General in the Harrison administration, a federal justice, High Commissioner of the Philippines, and Secretary of War. His reputation as a safe pair of hands led Theodore Roosevelt to nominate him as his successor, and Taft was elected President for the Republicans in 1908 with 51.6 per cent of the popular vote. The dynamic Roosevelt came to regret his support for the highly cautious, conservative Taft, who conceived of himself as an administrator, and believed in a strictly restricted interpretation of the presidency. When he called a special session of Congress to lower tariffs, he failed to engage in political persuasion or coalition-building, and tariffs ended up being raised to an all-time high. He abandoned the Roosevelt policy of governmental regulation of trusts in favor of regulation by specific lawsuit. Further disillusionment for Republican progressives came when Taft supported his Secretary of the Interior, Richard Ballinger, over the environmental campaigner Gifford Pinchot in the matter of the development of Alaskan land for the exploitation of oil. In the election of 1912 the radical and Progressive elements in his party broke away to support Theodore Roosevelt and Taft was left to come third in an election which Woodrow Wilson won with a plurality of votes. After 1912 he retired to the law, and was appointed Chief Justice of the United States by Warren Harding, in which capacity he presided very competently as a strict constitutionalist.

Taft, William Howard (1857–1930) Twenty-seventh US President (1909–13) and tenth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1921–30). He gained great credit as Governor of the Philippines (1901–04), and entered the cabinet of Theodore Roosevelt. Taft won the Republican nomination for President and was elected in 1908. His lack of political experience and tendency to side with the conservatives in the Republican Party caused increasing dissension. In 1912, Roosevelt, having failed to regain the presidential nomination, set up his own Progressive Party. With the Republican vote split, the Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, won the election. Taft taught at Yale Law School until 1921. As Chief Justice, he greatly streamlined the operations of the federal judiciary.

Taft, William Howard (1857–1930) US Republican statesman, 27th President of the USA (1909–13). His presidency is remembered for its dollar diplomacy in foreign affairs and for its tariff laws, which were criticized as being too favourable to big business. Taft later served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1921–30).

TAFT, WILLIAM HOWARD

Despite his imposing stature (six foot tall, three hundred pounds), William Howard Taft (1857–1930) was a reluctant President of the United States (1909–1913). To be leader of the nation was not Taft's first ambition, but his wife, brothers, and close-friend President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909) convinced Taft to run for the presidency in 1908. He won the election against Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan. Taft's tenure as the twenty-seventh President was undistinguished. He was a man with little taste for politics, and he made many blunders throughout his term in office. Although he was a poor president, he was a fine Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, a position to which he was appointed in 1921, eight years after he left the White House. This appointment fulfilled a life-long ambition, and he performed his job with passion, competence, and enthusiasm.

William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 15, 1857 to a family that lived in comfortable circumstances. They had migrated to Ohio from New England. Since Taft's father and grandfather had both served as judges, he also aspired to a career on the bench. In preparation, he began his studies at Yale University, finishing second in his class, and he received a law degree from the Cincinnati Law School in 1880.

Determined to assist the citizens of his state, Taft held many public offices throughout his early career. In 1887 he served as an Ohio superior court judge. Three years later, Taft was named U.S. solicitor general by President Benjamin Harrison (1889–1893), a position he held successfully until 1892 when he returned to Ohio for a seat on the Circuit Court of Appeals.

Taft distinguished himself as a federal judge and developed an ambition to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. That ambition would have to wait, however, as President William McKinley (1897–1901) requested in 1900 that Taft become president of the Philippine Commission. Working in the unstable and newly independent Philippine Islands, Taft established a civil government designed to serve the needs of its citizens, established an educational system, built roads and harbors, and pushed rapidly for limited self-government for the people whose islands were "possessed legally" by the United States during the Spanish-American War (1898).

Twice, in 1902 and in 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt offered Taft a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Taft regretfully turned it down to fulfill his commitment in the Philippines. A year later, however, Taft did accept Roosevelt's offer to become Secretary of War. This position still allowed him to be involved with matters in the Philippines and gave him responsibility for the construction of the Panama Canal. In addition to struggling with the problems and expenses of building the canal, Taft supported missions to Japan, hoping to create alliances for the U.S. in the Far East.

As President Roosevelt's term came to an end, he encouraged Taft to seek the presidency. Roosevelt and Taft had become good friends over the course of their careers and Roosevelt was convinced Taft was the best candidate for the job. With apprehension, Taft agreed to be the Republican presidential nominee in 1908, and in the election he defeated the Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan. Even in victory, the new president still had misgivings, and said that he felt, "just like a fish out of water."

Taft's timid, conservative style alienated many in Congress. His attempt to reduce tariffs met with strong opposition from Republicans, while supporters of the measure were angered by what they perceived as Taft's lack of forcefulness. It was an inauspicious beginning.

The disagreements over tariff reductions set the tone for Taft's administration. Taft was denounced by many in Congress for what appeared to be weakness towards powerful business interests. His administration also seemed to reverse the strong conservationist policies of his predecessor by opening up much valuable government land for lumber and mining interests. He fired the head of the national Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot (1865–1946), who refused to cover up a scandal in the Interior Department.

Working against him in a coalition, Republicans and Democrats in Congress drove through a half dozen reform measures, most of which Taft opposed. The measures included the creation of a graduated income tax, the direct election of senators by the voters, and an increase in the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission to control business. Taft was also faced with the uncertainties of social reform. Working people faced an increasingly volatile and shifting marketplace, and Taft paid little attention to making the necessary changes that would help stabilize the workplace by regulating relations between newly industrialized workers and growing industrial businesses.

Despite his discomfort in office and his difficulties with the legislative branch, Taft's administration was not without accomplishment. He oversaw the creation of the Postal Savings plan, a program to protect citizens' savings, and the admission of Arizona and New Mexico as new U.S. states. In addition, although Taft's predecessor Theodore Roosevelt had the reputation of a "trust buster," Taft's four years of leadership saw twice as many trust prosecutions as occurred throughout the eight years of Roosevelt's administration.

The tension between Taft and Congress eventually affected his friendship with Theodore Roosevelt. During the next presidential campaign in 1912, Taft and Roosevelt vied against each other for the Republican nomination. Taft was re-nominated, but in spite of that Roosevelt formed a new party, the Bull Moose Party. He ran against Taft in the election, and their competing campaigns split the Republican vote, giving the presidency to the Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921).

Taft was relieved to leave White House. Over time, he and Roosevelt reconciled, and their friendship was restored. Taft taught law at Yale University until 1921, when President Warren Harding (1921–1923) named him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Taft's long-time ambition was fulfilled. He accepted the post. As Chief Justice, Taft was well respected and performed the functions of his position confidently and enthusiastically. He made no secret of his happiness to be out of the White House and back in the courthouse. Taft served eight years on the bench until his death in 1930, at age 78.

See also: Interstate Commerce Commission, Spanish-American War, Tobacco Trust, Trust-Busting

FURTHER READING

Anderson, Donald F. William Howard Taft: A Conservative's Conception of the Presidency. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973.

Anderson, Judith I. William Howard Taft: An Intimate History. New York: Norton, 1981.

Burton, David H. The Learned Presidency: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1988.

Coletta, Paolo E. The Presidency of William Howard Taft. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1973.

Wilensky, Norman M. Conservatism in the Progressive Era: The Taft Republicans of 1912. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1965.