William Howard Taft
Distinguished jurist, effective administrator, but poor politician, William
Howard Taft spent four uncomfortable years in the White House. Large, jovial,
conscientious, he was caught in the intense battles between Progressives and
conservatives, and got scant credit for the achievements of his administration.
Born in 1857, the son of a distinguished judge, he graduated from Yale, and
returned to Cincinnati to study and practice law. He rose in politics through
Republican judiciary appointments, through his own competence and availability,
and because, as he once wrote facetiously, he always had his "plate the right
side up when offices were falling."
But Taft much preferred law to politics. He was appointed a Federal circuit
judge at 34. He aspired to be a member of the Supreme Court, but his wife, Helen
Herron Taft, held other ambitions for him.His route to the White House was
via administrative posts. President McKinley sent him to the Philippines in 1900
as chief civil administrator. Sympathetic toward the Filipinos, he improved the
economy, built roads and schools, and gave the people at least some
participation in government.
President Roosevelt made him Secretary of War, and by 1907 had decided that Taft
should be his successor. The Republican Convention nominated him the next year.
Taft disliked the campaign--"one of the most uncomfortable four months of my
life." But he pledged his loyalty to the Roosevelt program, popular in the West,
while his brother Charles reassured eastern Republicans. William Jennings Bryan,
running on the Democratic ticket for a third time, complained that he was having
to oppose two candidates, a western progressive Taft and an eastern conservative
Taft.
Progressives were pleased with Taft's election. "Roosevelt has cut enough hay,"
they said; "Taft is the man to put it into the barn." Conservatives were
delighted to be rid of Roosevelt--the "mad messiah."
Taft recognized that his techniques would differ from those of his predecessor.
Unlike Roosevelt, Taft did not believe in the stretching of Presidential powers.
He once commented that Roosevelt "ought more often to have admitted the legal
way of reaching the same ends."
Taft alienated many liberal Republicans who later formed the Progressive Party,
by defending the Payne-Aldrich Act which unexpectedly continued high tariff
rates. A trade agreement with Canada, which Taft pushed through Congress, would
have pleased eastern advocates of a low tariff, but the Canadians rejected it.
He further antagonized Progressives by upholding his Secretary of the Interior,
accused of failing to carry out Roosevelt's conservation policies.
In the angry Progressive onslaught against him, little attention was paid to the
fact that his administration initiated 80 antitrust suits and that Congress
submitted to the states amendments for a Federal income tax and the direct
election of Senators. A postal savings system was established, and the
Interstate Commerce Commission was directed to set railroad rates.
In 1912, when the Republicans renominated Taft, Roosevelt bolted the party to
lead the Progressives, thus guaranteeing the election of Woodrow Wilson.
Taft, free of the Presidency, served as Professor of Law at Yale until President
Harding made him Chief Justice of the United States, a position he held until
just before his death in 1930. To Taft, the appointment was his greatest honor;
he wrote: "I don't remember that I ever was President." |
