Taft, William Howard 1857-1930
27th President of the USA

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of President Ulysses S Grant's Secretary of War and Attorney-General, he studied at Yale and qualified as a lawyer in Cincinnati. He took part in Ohio state politics, and in 1890 became Solicitor-General for the USA. In 1900 he was made pres-ident of the Philippine Commission, and in 1901 first civil Governor of the islands. From 1904 to 1908 he was Secretary of War for the USA, and in 1906 provisional Governor of Cuba. From 1909 to 1913 he was President of the USA, continuing the antitrust policies of his predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, and securing a free-trade agreement with Canada, but his conservatism alienated the progressive wing of the Republican Party, and he was defeated by Woodrow Wilson for a second term. From 1913 he was Professor of Law at Yale and from 1921 Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. As such he made a number of useful reforms to the judiciary and proved himself a sound judge. His son was Robert A Taft.

Bibliography: Henry Fowles Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft (2 vols, 1939)