1909-13 William H. Taft

William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857 – March 8, 1930) was an American politician, the 27th President of the United States, the 10th Chief Justice of the United States, and a leader of the conservative wing of the Republican party. more...

Taft served as Solicitor General of the United States, 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, and establishing a better postal system. Taft defeated Roosevelt for the 1912 Republican nomination in a bruising battle in 1912. In 1921, he became Chief Justice, becoming the only President to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Early life

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. He was brought up in the Unitarian church, and would remain a faithful Unitarian his entire life. At age 18, he met his future wife Helen Herron in Cincinnati; she and Taft courted while he was away at college.

Education

Like his father, the younger Taft attended Yale College in New Haven. There, he was a member of Skull and Bones, the secret society co-founded by his father back in 1832, as well as the Beta chapter of the Psi Upsilon fraternity. His college friends knew him by the nickname "Old Bill." Initially, given Taft's physical size, Yale's football coach wanted him to join the college squad, but Taft's father refused to give him permission, citing both concern for his son's safety and his personal opinion that football was "not a gentleman's sport". Instead, Taft rowed on the Yale crew team and was an accomplished wrestler. In 1878, Taft graduated from Yale, ranking second in his class out of 121. After college, he attended Cincinnati Law School, graduating with his LL.B in 1880. While in law school, he worked on the area newspaper The Cincinnati Commercial.

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