Everything about William Howard Taft totally explained
William Howard Taft (
September 15 1857 –
March 8 1930) was an
American politician, the twenty-seventh
President of the United States, the tenth
Chief Justice of the United States, a leader of the progressive conservative wing of the
Republican Party in the early 20th century, a pioneer in
international arbitration and staunch advocate of world peace verging on pacifism, and scion of a leading political family, the
Tafts, of
Ohio.
Taft served as the
Solicitor General of the United States, a federal judge,
Governor-General of the Philippines, and
Secretary of War before being nominated for President in the
1908 Republican National Convention with the backing of his predecessor and close friend
Theodore Roosevelt.
His presidency was characterized by
trust-busting, strengthening the
Interstate Commerce Commission, expanding the
civil service, establishing a better
postal system, and promoting world peace. Roosevelt broke with Taft in 1911, charging Taft was too reactionary. Taft and the conservatives were alarmed at Roosevelt's attacks on the judiciary, and took control of the party machinery. Taft defeated Roosevelt for the
Republican nomination in a bruising battle in
1912 that forced Roosevelt out of the GOP and left Taft's people in charge for decades. William Howard Taft remains the only U.S. President to finish third in a bid for reelection to a second consecutive term. During
World War I he helped set national labor policy that reduced strikes and generated union support for the national cause. In 1921, he became
Chief Justice. As President and Chief Justice he helped make the federal courts, especially the Supreme Court, much more powerful in shaping national policy. To date he's the only former president to serve on the Supreme Court.
Early life
Taft was born on
September 15,
1857, in
Cincinnati, Ohio, the third of five children. His mother,
Louisa Torrey, was a graduate of
Mount Holyoke College. His father,
Alphonso Taft, came to Cincinnati in 1839 to open a law practice. Alphonso Taft was a prominent Republican and served as
Secretary of War under President
Ulysses S. Grant.
Taft was brought up in the
Unitarian church and remained a faithful Unitarian his entire life (later in life he once remarked, "I don't believe in the divinity of Christ, and there are many other of the postulates of the orthodox creed to which I can not subscribe."). At age 18, he met his future wife,
Helen Herron, in Cincinnati; she and Taft courted while he was away at college. He enjoyed spending time with his aunt, Meredith Johnson, who required wheelchair and crutches to get around.
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 that reflect the family life during Taft's boyhood. The home also includes second floor exhibits highlighting Taft's life center.
Education
In 1874, Taft attended
Woodward High School. Like most of his family, he attended
Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut. At Yale, he was a member of the
Linonian Society, a literary and debate society;
Skull and Bones, the secret society co-founded by his father in 1832; and the Beta chapter of the
Psi Upsilon fraternity. Later in life he was also inducted into the Omicron-Omicron chapter of the secret society of
Theta Nu Epsilon, after delivering the commencement address to the class of 1910 at
Ohio Northern University. He was given the nickname "Big Lub" because of his size, but his college friends knew him by the nickname "Old Bill". Taft received jibes about his weight throughout his life: as governor of the Philippines, Taft once sent a telegram to
Washington, D.C. that read, "Went on a horse ride today; feeling good;" Secretary of War
Elihu Root replied, "How's the horse?" In 1878, Taft graduated from Yale, ranking second in his class out of 121. After college, he attended
Cincinnati Law School, graduating with a
Bachelor of Laws in 1880. While in law school, he worked on the area newspaper
The Cincinnati Commercial.
Career
After admission to the Ohio
bar, Taft was appointed Assistant
Prosecutor of
Hamilton County, Ohio, based in Cincinnati. In 1882, he was appointed local Collector of
Internal Revenue. Taft married his longtime sweetheart,
Helen Herron, in Cincinnati in 1886. In 1887, he was appointed as a judge of the Ohio Superior Court. In 1890, President
Benjamin Harrison appointed him
Solicitor General of the United States. In 1892 Harrison appointed him to the newly created
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, a post that he held until 1900. It was then that he met Theodore Roosevelt for the first time. In about 1893, Taft decided in favor of one or more patents for processing
aluminium belonging to the Pittsburg Reduction Company, today known as
Alcoa, who settled with the other party in 1903 and became for a short while the only aluminium producer in the U.S.
In addition to his judgeship, between 1896 and 1900 Taft also served as the first dean and a professor of constitutional law at the
University of Cincinnati. Eventually, he became the chief judge of the Sixth Circuit. One of Taft's most famous opinions was in
Addyston Pipe and Steel Company v. United States (1898).
In 1900, President
William McKinley appointed Taft as the chairman of a commission to organize a civilian government in the
Philippines, which had been ceded to the United States by
Spain following the
Spanish-American War and the
1898 Treaty of Paris. Although Taft initially had been opposed to the annexation of the islands and told McKinley that his real ambition was to become a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, he reluctantly accepted the appointment when McKinley suggested that he'd be "the better judge for this experience."
From 1901 to 1903, Taft served as the first civilian Governor-General of the Philippines, a position in which he was very popular among both Americans and
Filipinos. In 1902, Taft visited Rome to negotiate with
Pope Leo XIII for the purchase of lands in the Philippines owned by the Roman Catholic Church. Taft then persuaded Congress to appropriate $7,239,000 to purchase the lands, which he sold to Filipinos on easy terms. In 1903, President Roosevelt offered Taft the seat on the Supreme Court to which he'd for so long aspired, but he reluctantly declined when native Filipino groups begged him to remain in
Manila as Governor-General.
Secretary of War, 1904–1908
In 1904, Roosevelt appointed Taft as
Secretary of War. Roosevelt made the basic policy decisions regarding military affairs, using Taft as a well-traveled spokesman who campaigned for Roosevelt's re-election in 1904. Taft met with the Emperor of
Japan, who alerted him of the probability of war with
Russia. In 1906, Roosevelt sent troops to restore order in
Cuba during the revolt led by General
Enrique Loynaz del Castillo, and Taft temporarily became the Civil
Governor of Cuba, personally negotiating with General Castillo for a peaceful end to the revolt. In 1907, Secretary Taft helped supervise the beginning of construction on the
Panama Canal. Taft repeatedly had told Roosevelt he wanted to be Chief Justice, not President (and not an associate justice), but there was no vacancy and Roosevelt had other plans. He gave Taft more responsibilities in addition to the Philippines and the Panama Canal. For a while, Taft was Acting Secretary of State. When Roosevelt was away, Taft in effect was the Acting President.
Presidency, 1909–1913
PoliciesTheodore Roosevelt refused to run in
the election of 1908. Roosevelt certified Taft as a genuine "progressive", in 1908, pushing through the nomination of his Secretary of War for the presidency. At the age 51, Taft easily defeated three-time candidate
William Jennings Bryan. Taft considered himself a "progressive" because of his deep belief in "The Law" as the scientific device that should be used by judges to solve society's problems. Taft proved a less adroit politician than Roosevelt and seemed to lack the energy and personal magnetism of his mentor, not to mention the publicity devices, the dedicated supporters, and the broad base of public support that made Roosevelt so formidable. When Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff would risk severe tensions inside the Republican Party, pitting producers (manufacturers and farmers) against department stores and consumers, he stopped talking about the issue. Taft ignored the risks and tackled the tariff boldly, on the one hand encouraging reformers to fight for lower rates, then cutting deals with conservative leaders that kept overall rates high. The resulting
Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 was too high for most reformers, but instead of blaming this on Senator
Nelson Aldrich and big business, Taft took credit, calling it the best bill to come from the Republican Party. Again, he'd managed to alienate all sides.
Unlike Roosevelt, Taft never attacked business or businessmen in his rhetoric. However, he was attentive to the law, so he launched 80 antitrust suits, including one against the country's largest corporation,
U.S. Steel, for an acquisition that Roosevelt personally had approved. As a result, Taft lost the support of antitrust reformers (who disliked his conservative rhetoric), of big business (which disliked his actions), and of Roosevelt, who felt humiliated by his protégé. Progressives within the Republican party began agitating against Taft. Senator
Robert LaFollette of
Wisconsin created the
National Progressive Republican League to replace Taft at the national level; his campaign crashed after a disastrous speech. Most of LaFollette's supporters went over to Roosevelt, leaving LaFollette embittered and alone. More trouble came when Taft fired
Gifford Pinchot, a leading conservationist and close ally of Roosevelt. Pinchot alleged that Taft's Secretary of Interior
Richard Ballinger was in league with big timber interests. Conservationists sided with Pinchot, and Taft alienated yet another vocal constituency.
Taft fought for the
prosecution of trusts (eventually issuing 80 lawsuits), further strengthened the
Interstate Commerce Commission, established a
postal savings bank and a
parcel post system, and expanded the civil service. He supported the
16th Amendment, which allowed for a federal income tax, and the
17th Amendment, mandating the direct election of
senators by the people, replacing the previous system whereby they were selected by
state legislatures.
Foreign policy
Taft actively pursued what he termed "
dollar diplomacy" to further the economic development of less-developed nations of Latin America and Asia through American investment in their infrastructures. Throughout the early part of his presidency, Taft had difficulties with
Nicaragua. When the United States shifted its interests to
Panama for the purpose of building a canal, Nicaraguan President
José Santos Zelaya negotiated with
Germany and Japan in an unsuccessful effort to have a canal constructed in his country. The Zelaya administration had growing friction with the United States government, which started giving aid to his Conservative opponents in Nicaragua. In 1907, U.S. warships seized several of Nicaragua's seaports. In early December,
United States Marines landed on Nicaragua's
Caribbean Sea coast. On
December 17,
1909, Zelaya resigned and left for exile in
Mexico. The U.S.-sponsored conservative regime of
Adolfo Díaz was installed in his place. Military invasions increased with marine landings in 1910 and 1912. The Marines stayed in Nicaragua through 1925.
One of Taft's main goals while President was to further the idea of
world peace. Given his judicial sensibilities, he believed that international
arbitration was the best means to effectuate the end of
war on Earth. As such, he championed several reciprocity and arbitration treaties. In 1910, he convinced congressional Democrats to support a reciprocity treaty with
Canada, but the
Liberal Canadian government of
Wilfrid Laurier that negotiated the treaty was turned out of office in 1911 and the treaty collapsed. In 1910 and 1911, however, he secured the ratification of arbitration treaties that he'd successfully negotiated with
Britain and
France and thereafter was known as one of the foremost advocates of world peace and arbitration.
16th Amendment
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 remove the apportionment requirement 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 in February 3, 1913, it became a part of the Constitution as the
Sixteenth Amendment, as Taft was leaving office.
Party schism
Despite his obvious achievements, progressives decried Taft's acceptance of the
Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act, which lowered the tariff on the farm products of the western states, whose citizens desired lower rates on Eastern factory products. Taft opposed the entry of the state of
Arizona into the Union because of its judicial features. Progressives grumbled that he worked too closely with conservative Senator
Nelson W. Aldrich and
Speaker of the House Joseph G. Cannon. By 1910, Taft's party was deeply divided between progressives and conservatives.
On his return from Europe, Roosevelt broke with Taft in one of the most dramatic political feuds of the 20th century. To the surprise of observers who thought Roosevelt had unstoppable momentum, Taft outmaneuvered Roosevelt and LaFollette, seized control of the GOP, and forced both out of the party. The main issue in 1911–12 was independence of the judiciary, which Roosevelt denounced. Most lawyers in the GOP supported Taft, including many of Roosevelt's key supporters like
Elihu Root,
Henry Stimson, and Roosevelt's own son-in-law,
Nicholas Longworth. In lining up delegates for the 1912 nomination, Taft outmaneuvered Roosevelt, who had started much too late, and kept control of the Republican party.
1912 was the first year that some delegates were determined through primary elections. Primary elections were seen as a way to take power away from party bosses and put it in the hands of the people. Out of the 14 Republican primaries held, Roosevelt won 9, and Taft only won 3. Robert Lafollette won the other 2. Nevertheless, Taft had the delegates and won the nomination at the Republican nominating convention in Chicago.
Instead, Roosevelt was forced to create the
Progressive Party (or "Bull Moose") ticket, splitting the Republican vote in the
1912 election.
Woodrow Wilson, the Democrat, was elected, although many historians argue that Wilson would have won anyway, because the Republican factions wouldn't support each other. Taft won the mere eight electoral votes of
Utah and
Vermont, making it the single worst defeat in American history for an incumbent President seeking re-election. He achieved what he felt were his main goals as President, however: keeping permanent control of the party and making the courts sacrosanct. It also should be noted that 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
Supreme Court appointments
During his presidency, Taft appointed the following Justices to the
Supreme Court of the United States:
- Horace Harmon Lurton — 1910 » Lurton had served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit with Taft, and Taft's attorney general said that at 66 he was too old to become a Supreme Court justice, but Taft had always admired Lurton. According to the Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (2001 edition), Taft later said that "the chief pleasure of my administration" was the appointment of Lurton.
- Charles Evans Hughes — 1910 » Even though Hughes resigned in 1916 to run in the presidential election that year, he became Taft's successor as Chief Justice.
- Edward Douglass White — Chief Justice — 1910 » Already on the Court as an associate justice since 1894, White was the first Chief Justice to be elevated from an associate justiceship. Taft succeeded White as Chief Justice in 1921.
- Willis Van Devanter — 1911
- Joseph Rucker Lamar — 1911
- Mahlon Pitney — 1912
Taft's six appointments to the Court rank (in number) third only to those of
George Washington (who appointed the entire Court as the first President) and
Franklin D. Roosevelt (who was president for twelve years); as well, his appointment of five new justices ties the number appointed by
Andrew Jackson and
Abraham Lincoln. Four of Taft's appointees were relatively young at ages 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. Hughes initially was appointed an
Associate Justice, but later resigned to run for the
Republican Party's presidential candidate in the
1916 election, which he'd lose. President
Herbert Hoover renominated Hughes to the Supreme Court as Chief Justice following Taft's retirement.
States admitted to the Union
New Mexico: January 6, 1912
Arizona: February 14, 1912. Taft had opposed the admission of Arizona owing to what he viewed as defects in its judicial system.
Post-presidency
Upon leaving the White House in 1913, Taft was appointed the Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and Legal History at Yale Law School. Upon his appointment, the Yale Chapter of the Acacia Fraternity made him an honorary member. 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 and prohibition in general 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.
When World War I did break out in Europe in 1914, however, Taft founded the League to Enforce Peace. He was co-chair of the powerful National War Labor Board between 1917 and 1918. Although he continually advocated peace, he strongly favored conscription once the United States entered the conflict, 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
In 1921, when Chief Justice Edward Douglass White died, President Warren G. Harding nominated Taft to take his place, thereby fulfilling Taft's lifelong ambition to become Chief Justice of the United States. Very little opposition existed to the nomination, and the Senate approved him 60-4 in a secret session, but the roll call of the vote has never been made public. He readily took up the position, serving until 1930. As such, he became the only President to serve as Chief Justice, and thus is also 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). He 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: he allegedly once remarked, "I don't remember that I ever was President."
In 1922, Taft traveled to England to study the procedural structure of the English courts and learn how they disposed of such a large number of cases in such an expeditious manner. During the trip, King George V and Queen Mary received Taft and his wife as state visitors. With what he'd learned in England, Taft advocated passage of the Judiciary Act of 1925 (often called the "Judges Bill"), which shifted the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction to be exercisable principally on review by writ of certiorari, thereby empowering the Supreme Court to give preference to cases of national importance and allowing the Court to work more efficiently. In addition to giving the Court more control over its docket, the new legislation (and the Judicial Conference that Taft organized) gave the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice general supervisory power over the scattered and disorganized federal courts, bringing the District of Columbia and the territories within the federal system, uniting the courts for the first time as an independent third branch of government (contrary to the British model) under the administrative supervision of the Chief Justice of the United States. Taft was also the first Justice to employ two full-time law clerks.
In 1929, Taft successfully argued for the construction of the Supreme Court Building, reasoning that the court needed to distance itself from Congress as a separate branch of government. Until then, the Court had heard cases in the old Senate Chamber
of the Capitol; the justices had no chambers and their conferences were held in a room in the basement. Taft, however, didn't live to see the building's completion in 1935.
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:
Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co., (opinion for the Court)
- Holding the 1919 Child Labor Tax Law unconstitutional.
Balzac v. Porto Rico, (opinion for the Court)
Adkins v. Children's Hospital, (dissenting opinion)
Myers v. United States, (opinion for the Court)
- Ruling that the President of the United States had the power unilaterally to dismiss executive appointees who had been confirmed by the Senate.
Gong Lum v. Rice, (opinion for the Court)
Olmstead v. United States, (opinion for the Court)
Wisconsin v. Illinois, (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 in which nonaction would result in damage to the interests of other states.
Old Colony Trust Co. v. Commissioner, (opinion for the Court)
- Holding that where a third party pays the income tax due to an individual, the amount of tax paid constitutes additional income to the taxpayer.
Medical condition
Evidence from eyewitnesses and from Taft himself strongly suggests that he'd severe obstructive sleep apnea during his presidency, resulting from his obesity. Within a year of leaving the presidency, Taft lost approximately 80 pounds (32 kg). His somnolence resolved and, less obviously, his systolic blood pressure dropped 40–50 mmHg (from 210 mmHg). Undoubtedly, this weight loss extended his life. Beginning in 1920, Taft used a cane; his was a gift from Professor of Geology W.S. Foster, made of 250,000-year-old wood.
Death and legacy
Taft retired as Chief Justice on February 3, 1930, because of ill health. He was succeeded by Charles Evans Hughes, whom he'd appointed to the Court while President. Taft died after succumbing to illness on March 8, 1930. Three days later, on March 11, he became the first president to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. His grave marker was sculpted by James Earle Fraser out of Stony Creek granite. and high schools in San Antonio, Texas, Woodland Hills, California, Chicago, Illinois, and the Bronx, New York. After a fire burned much of the town of Moron, California during the 1920s, it was renamed Taft, in his honor.
According to legend (though probably apocryphal), the traditional 7th inning stretch at baseball games is owed to Taft. The president was watching a game and, in the 7th inning, got up to stretch. The crowd, out of respect for the president, also rose to their feet. Since then, people have stretched during the 7th inning.
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