William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857 – March 8, 1930) is the 27th president of the United States (1909–1913) and the tenth Chief Justice of the United States (1921–1930), the only person to have held both offices.

Taft is elected president in 1908, the chosen successor of Theodore Roosevelt, but is defeated for re-election by Woodrow Wilson in 1912 after Roosevelt split the Republican vote by running as a third-party candidate.

In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appoints Taft to be chief justice, a position in which he serves until a month before his death.

Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1857.

His father, Alphonso Taft, is a U.S. Attorney General and Secretary of War.

Taft attends Yale and, like his father, is a member of Skull and Bones.

After becoming a lawyer, Taft is appointed a judge while still in his twenties.

He continues a rapid rise, being named Solicitor General and as a judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In 1901, President William McKinley appoints Taft civilian governor of the Philippines.

In 1904, Roosevelt makes him Secretary of War, and he becomes Roosevelt's hand-picked successor.

Despite his personal ambition to become chief justice, Taft declines repeated offers of appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States, believing his political work to be more important.

With Roosevelt's help, Taft has little opposition for the Republican nomination for president in 1908 and easily defeats William Jennings Bryan for the presidency in that November's election.

In the White House, he focused on East Asia more than European affairs and repeatedly intervenes to prop up or remove Latin American governments.

Taft seeks reductions to trade tariffs, at this time a major source of governmental income, but the resulting bill is heavily influenced by special interests.

His administration is filled with conflict between the conservative wing of the Republican Party, with which Taft often sympathizes, and the progressive wing, toward which Roosevelt movesmore and more.

Controversies over conservation and antitrust cases filed by the Taft administration serve to further separate the two men.

Roosevelt challenges Taft for renomination in 1912.

Taft uses his control of the party machinery to gain a bare majority of delegates and Roosevelt bolts the party

The split leaves Taft with little chance of re-election and he takes only Utah and Vermont in Wilson's victory.

After leaving office, Taft returns to Yale as a professor, continuing his political activity and working against war through the League to Enforce Peace.

In 1921, President Harding appoints Taft as chief justice, an office he had long sought.

Chief Justice Taft is a conservative on business issues and under him there are advances in individual rights.\

In poor health, he resigns in February 1930, and dies the following month.

He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, the first president and first Supreme Court justice to be interred there.

Taft is generally listed near the middle in historians' rankings of U.S. presidents.

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