Taft spent his boyhood in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father Alphonso Taft was a
distinguished Cincinnati attorney and a prominent Republican
who served as secretary of war and then attorney general under President Ulysses
Grant. Taft's father was also U.S. Ambassador to Austria-Hungary and Russia under
President Chester Arthur. The elder Taft had also sought but lost the 1879 Republican
gubernatorial nomination in Ohio.
From childhood, William Howard Taft had a weight problem. At times during his presidency, he reached
300 pounds. At Yale University he graduating second in his class. Taft entered private law practice
while also holding several local appointive positions. Taft also held several key
legal and judicial posts from 1887 to 1900, including judge of the Cincinnati Superior
Court, U.S. solicitor general, and then as a member of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals. President William McKinley asked Taft to serve as president of the commission
to oversee the newly won Philippine Islands. Taft took the job, only after McKinley promised him
position on the Supreme Court when he returned.
Taft's service in the Philippines from 1900 to 1903 was
fulfilling and largely successful. While there, he twice turned down President Roosevelt's offer
of a Supreme Court appointment in order to finish his work. He became governor of the islands
in 1901. in 1903 Taft left the islands to become Roosevelt's
secretary of war.
As secretary of war, Taft became Roosevelt's chief emissary and confidant, assisting him in the
Portsmouth Peace negotiations, and in establishing a protectorate in Cuba. Roosevelt handpicked
Taft to succeed him in 1908. The public joked that T.A.F.T. stood for "take advice from Theodore."
Thanks in part to Roosevelt's popularity, Taft's victory over Democrat William Jennings Bryan
was decisive. Taft promised to continue Roosevelt's reform program. But Roosevelt, and many of
his allies, saw Taft's administration as abandoning progressivism. The consequent animosity
split the Republican Party in 1912.
Taft came to the White House promising to continue Roosevelt's agenda, but he was more comfortable
executing the existing law than demanding new legislation from Congress. His first effort as
President was to lead Congress to lower tariffs, but traditional high tariff interests dominated
Congress, and Taft largely failed in his effort at legislative leadership. He also alienated
Roosevelt when he attempted to break up U.S. Steel, a trust that Roosevelt had approved while
President. Taft also forced Roosevelt's forestry chief to resign, jeopardizing Roosevelt's gains
in the conservation of natural resources. By 1911, Taft was less active in "trust-busting,"
and generally seemed more conservative. In foreign affairs, Taft continued Roosevelt's goal of
expanding U.S. foreign trade in South and Central America, as well as in Asia, and he termed
his policy "dollar diplomacy."
President Taft's life-long dream of reaching the U.S. Supreme Court was satisfied in 1921 when
he was appointed as chief justice by President Warren Harding. His tendency to contemplate
every side of an issue served him well as chief justice but rendered him indecisive and
ineffectual as President.
