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 was 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."
-
William
Taft