William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 27th President | |
| Vice President | James S. Sherman |
| Preceded by | Theodore Roosevelt |
| Succeeded by | Woodrow Wilson |
| Personal details | |
| Nationality | american |
| Political party | Republican |
William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857 – March 8, 1930) was an American politician, the 27th President of the United States, and the 10th Chief Justice of the United States. He was the only person in history to have led both the Executive and Judicial branches of the United States government, and the last President to hold public office after his term ended. A Republican, Taft served as Secretary of War, federal judge for the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Governor-General of the Philippines before being nominated for president in the 1908 Republican National Convention with the backing of his predecessor and close friend Theodore Roosevelt.
Taft defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the presidential election, and during his presidency prosecuted the trusts, strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission, expanded the civil service, and established a better postal system. Two constitutional amendments were passed during his term: the 16th Amendment, authorizing a federal income tax, and the 17th Amendment, mandating the direct election of senators by the people instead of by the state legislatures (see below). Taft was the first president to occupy the Oval Office when it was opened in October 1909.
Taft later broke off contact with Roosevelt in one of the most well-publicized political feuds of the 20th century. In the 1912 election, Taft lost his bid for a second term; Roosevelt ran on his newly formed Progressive Party ("Bull Moose") ticket, splitting the Republican vote and resulting in the election of Woodrow Wilson. Taft later became Chief Justice, becoming the only President to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Early life and career
Taft was born on September 15, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio. His mother was Mount Holyoke graduate Louisa Torrey; his father was Alphonso Taft, a prominent Republican, who served as Secretary of War under President Ulysses S. Grant. Like his father, the younger Taft went to college at Yale University, where he was a member of Skull and Bones, the secret society co-founded by his father. He was also a member of the Beta chapter of the Psi Upsilon fraternal organization. After college, he attended Cincinnati Law School and began his political career in Ohio shortly after joining the bar in 1880.
In 1892, Taft was appointed by President Benjamin Harrison as an associate judge for the newly created Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a post which he held until 1900. 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. From 1901 to 1903, Taft served as the first civilian Governor-General of the Philippines. In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt named Taft as Secretary of War, and he returned to the United States.
Presidency
After serving nearly two full terms, the popular Theodore Roosevelt refused to run in the election of 1908. Instead, he promoted Taft as the next Republican president. With Roosevelt's help, Taft handily defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan. Throughout his presidency, Taft contended with dissent from more liberal members of the Republican Party, many of whom continued to follow the lead of former President Roosevelt.
Taft fought for prosecution of trusts, further strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission, established Yellowstone National park, established a postal savings bank and a parcel post system, expanded the civil service and sponsored the enactment of two amendments to the Constitution. The 16th Amendment authorized a federal income tax; the 17th Amendment, ratified in 1913, mandated the direct election of senators by the people, replacing the system whereby they were selected by state legislatures. He also signed legislation that created the United States Department of Labor.
Yet balanced against these achievements was Taft's acceptance of a tariff with protective schedules that outraged liberal opinion; his opposition to the entry of the state of Arizona into the Union because of its liberal constitution; and his growing reliance on the conservative wing of his party. By 1910 Taft's party was divided.
Progressive Republicans openly challenged Taft in the Congressional elections of 1910 and in the Republican presidential primaries of 1912. When Taft won the Republican nomination, the Progressives organized a rival party (the United States Progressive Party, a.k.a. "Bull Moose") and selected Theodore Roosevelt to run against Taft in the general election. Roosevelt's Bull Moose candidacy split the Republican vote and helped elect Democrat Woodrow Wilson.
Evidence from eyewitnesses and from Taft himself strongly suggests he had severe obstructive sleep apnea during his Presidential term of office, a consequence of his 300 to 340 pound (136 to 159 kg) weight. His legendary tendency to fall asleep in almost any circumstance, an open secret and source of embarassment for his intimates, is now understood to have been the most obvious manifestation of the disease. Within a year of leaving the Presidency Taft lost approximately 70 pounds (32 kg), dropping his weight from 335 pounds to 264 pounds. His hypersomnolence resolved and, less obviously, his systolic blood pressure dropped 40 to 50 mmHg (from 210 mmHg). Undoubtedly, this weight loss saved his life.
Supreme Court Appointments
Taft appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
- Horace Harmon Lurton - 1910
- Charles Evans Hughes - 1910
- Edward Douglass White - Chief Justice - 1910 (Already on the Court as Associate Justice since 1894, and the first Chief Justice to be elevated from Associate, although Chief Justice John Rutledge had previously served as an associate justice. Taft himself would succeed White as Chief Justice.)
- Willis Van Devanter - 1911
- Joseph Rucker Lamar - 1911
- Mahlon Pitney - 1912
Notably, Taft's 6 appointments to the Court rank third only to those of Washington and FDR, with his appointment of 5 new justices tied with Jackson and Lincoln. Taft's unusual opportunity to make 5 appointments in the single Court term of 1910-1911 came largely from the sickly composition of the Court in 1909; the youngest justice Moody was so ill as to leave the bench in the middle of the 1909 term and never return, and the four justices over 70 were in various stages of decline with three dying before the 1910 term. Perhaps as a result, 4 of Taft's appointments were men of relative youth and vigor at 48, 51, 53 and 54.
States Admitted to the Union
Chief Justiceship
From 1921 until 1930, Taft served on the Supreme Court as Chief Justice of the United States. He was the only President to do so, and thus the only former president to swear in future presidents. He gave the oath of office to both Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. In an effort to make the Court work more efficiently, he advocated passage of the 1925 Judges Act enabling the Supreme Court to give precedence to cases of national importance.
Taft retired as chief justice on February 3, 1930, due to ill health. He died 33 days later on Saturday March 8. During the last summer of his life, Taft weighed about 244 pounds, one pound more than his average weight in college. Three days later, on March 11, he became the first American president to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. His wife, Helen, was reported to have said that his service as Secretary of War was what qualified him for burial there while, in fact, anyone who serves as president and thus Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces is entitled to burial at Arlington. He is one of two presidents (the other being John F. Kennedy) and one of four chief justices buried at Arlington (the others being Earl Warren, Warren Burger, and William Rehnquist).
A third generation of the Taft family entered the national political stage in 1938. The former president's oldest son, Robert A. Taft I, was elected to the United States Senate. A vociferous critic of the New Deal, Robert Taft was a Republican leader in the Senate from 1939-1953. His other son, Charles Phelps Taft II served as mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio from 1955 to 1957. Two more generations of the Taft family later entered politics. The President's grandson, Robert Taft Jr., served a term as a Senator from Ohio from 1971-1977; the President's great-grandson, Robert A. Taft II, is the current Governor of Ohio. William Howard Taft III was U.S. ambassador to Ireland. William Howard Taft IV is a high official in the United States Department of State.
Trivia
- Taft was overweight, to the point that he became stuck in the bathtub in the White House several times, prompting the installation of a new bathtub capable of holding all of the men who installed it. At 6 feet, and weighing over 350 pounds (159 kg) , Taft was the largest and heaviest President. There is some evidence that his mother started calling him "my pudgy-wudgy boy" before his fifth birthday. This may have led to his disdain for the word "pudgy." In fact, it was said that an aide blacked out "pudgy" from his morning newspaper.
- In Manila, Philippines, an avenue was named after him, Taft Avenue. It is one of the busiest streets in the city and one of 2 majors streets that the Light Rail Transit (LRT) passes through.
- In the 1920 U.S. Federal Population Census, William H. Taft was listed as a university professor living in New Haven, Connecticut.
Media
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Related articles
- Taft family
- U.S. presidential election, 1908
- U.S. presidential election, 1912
- History of the United States (1865-1918)
- Dollar Diplomacy
External links
- Inaugural Address
- Audio clips of Taft's speeches
- Taft's sleep apnea
- Taft's medical history
- White House biography
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Acting officeholders shown in italics | ||
Template:Start U.S. Supreme Court composition Template:U.S. Supreme Court composition 1921–1922 Template:U.S. Supreme Court composition 1922 Template:U.S. Supreme Court composition 1923–1925 Template:U.S. Supreme Court composition 1925–1930 Template:End U.S. Supreme Court composition
- 1857 births
- 1930 deaths
- People from Ohio
- Taft family
- Bonesmen
- American lawyers
- Judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
- Solicitor General of the United States
- Spanish colonial period in the Philippines
- History of the Philippines
- U.S. Secretaries of War
- U.S. Republican Party presidential nominees
- Presidents of the U.S.
- Unitarian Universalists
- Chief Justices of the U.S.
- Burials at Arlington National Cemetery