Family and education

William Howard Taft was born into a wealthy family on September 15, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio. His parents were Alphonso Taft and Louisa Maria Torrey. Alphonso was a successful lawyer and judge who served in the Cabinet of President Ulysses S. Grant.

Taft graduated from Yale University in 1878. He was ranked second in his class. In 1880 he earned a degree from the Cincinnati Law School.

Enters politics and marries

Taft practiced law very little. Instead he was drawn to politics in the Republican Party. After serving in a series of minor political positions, he was appointed a judge of the superior court of Ohio in 1887. He was named solicitor general of the United States in 1890 and judge of the federal circuit court in 1892. His moderate to conservative decisions sometimes angered labor unions.

Taft married Helen (Nellie) Herron, daughter of a Cincinnati lawyer, in 1886. They had three children––Robert Alphonso, Helen, and Charles Phelps.

Governor of the Philippines and secretary of war

In 1900 President William McKinley asked Taft to organize a civil government for the Philippines. The country had come under the control of the United States in 1898 after the United States defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War. Taft resigned his position as a judge to accept the assignment. In 1901 he became the first civilian governor of the Philippines. He was successful in this role. He was fond of the Philippine people and very popular among them.

In 1904 Taft returned to Washington to serve as secretary of war under President Theodore Roosevelt. Taft replaced Elihu Root, who later became the secretary of state. Roosevelt, Taft, and Root worked together so closely that they came to be known as the Three Musketeers.

The presidency

When Roosevelt chose not to run for reelection in 1908, he threw his support behind Taft. The president believed that Taft would continue his progressive reforms. Roosevelt's support helped Taft win the Republican presidential nomination and the election. Taft defeated the Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the electoral college by 321 votes to 162.

Taft's term was marked by quarrels within the Republican Party. He failed to address the growing split between conservative and progressive Republicans, which had begun during Roosevelt's presidency. The progressives were the young generation Republicans who called for greater reforms. They expected Taft to carry forward their reforms. He did continue Roosevelt's attacks on the big business combinations known as trusts. Twice as many suits were brought against trusts in his administration as in Roosevelt's. Nevertheless, Taft generally disappointed progressives. He first offended them by not appointing any of them to his Cabinet.

Conservation of natural resources was a source of conflict as well. Roosevelt had strongly supported this cause, which was very important to progressives. Taft backed conservation as well. In 1910, however, he fired Gifford Pinchot, the forester of the United States, a strong conservationist, and a close friend of Roosevelt. With this move, Taft lost whatever support he still had among Republican progressives.

Progressive Republicans tried to prevent Taft's renomination in 1912. They persuaded Roosevelt to run for the nomination against his former associate. After Taft won the nomination, Roosevelt and the progressives left the Republican Party to form the Progressive, or Bull Moose, Party. Roosevelt was nominated as the new party's presidential candidate. This split in the Republican Party allowed the Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the election.

Life after the presidency

After leaving office Taft taught law at Yale University. During World War I (1914–18) he promoted the creation of an international organization to enforce peace. At the end of the war he strongly backed United States participation in the League of Nations.

In 1921 President Warren G. Harding appointed Taft chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. Taft considered this appointment to be his greatest achievement. He improved the Court's efficiency and helped bring about the Judges Act of 1925, which gave the Court more choice about which cases to hear.

Suffering from heart disease, Taft resigned as chief justice on February 3, 1930. He died on March 8 in Washington and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.