William Howard Taft Facts & Worksheets

• Helen Taft had a bad stroke early in his term. It left her partially paralysed and unable to speak. Taft spent a lot of time taking care of her and helping her get better, which showed how dedicated he was to her and also changed how people saw his presidency.
• Taft changed the State Department’s structure for foreign policy by adding geographical divisions and a training programme for diplomats while they were on the job.
• He and Secretary of State Philander Knox pushed for Dollar Diplomacy in Latin America, which meant supporting US investments to make things more stable and keeping European influence out. This is how the US got involved in Nicaragua and Mexico; he wanted to protect American interests without using forceful military action.
• Taft also paid attention to East Asia. He tried to expand the Open Door Policy in China, dealt with the fallout from the 1911 revolution, and kept strict immigration agreements with China and Japan. He wanted to settle disagreements with Britain and France through arbitration in Europe, but the Senate was against it. Taft continued Roosevelt’s efforts to break up trusts at home, filing 70 antitrust lawsuits over four years against companies like Standard Oil, American Tobacco, US Steel and International Harvester.
• Taft’s ‘Southern Policy’ on civil rights was different from Roosevelt’s, which led to the removal of many African American officeholders in the South. He wanted to run the country in a legalistic way, so he named six Supreme Court justices, including Edward Douglass White as Chief Justice, and many other judges for federal and specialised courts. By 1912, things had got so bad between Taft and Roosevelt that Roosevelt decided to run as a Progressive, which split the Republican Party.
• Presidential candidate Woodrow Wilson took advantage of this split and won the presidency with 435 electoral votes. Roosevelt got 88 and Taft only eight. Taft’s presidency is remembered for its focus on the rule of law, the careful continuation of progressive reforms, and the conflicts within the Republican Party that changed American politics during the Progressive Era.

LIFE AFTER PRESIDENCY

• William Howard Taft backed the Republican ticket of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge in the 1920 election. After they won, Harding talked to Taft about appointments and asked him if he would be willing to take a seat on the Supreme Court. Taft said yes only if he could become Chief Justice, citing his past as president and his disagreement with Justice Louis D. Brandeis. Chief Justice Edward White was sick, but he did not retire right away.
• White died on 19 May 1921. Taft quietly campaigned for the job, while Harding looked at other candidates and made plans for the time being. Harding finally made Taft Chief Justice on 30 June 1921. 
• The Senate approved him the same day, and he took the oath of office on 11 July, making him the only person in US history to be both president and chief justice.
• Taft was the Chief Justice of a conservative court, especially when it came to the Commerce Clause, which limited the power of the federal and state governments to make rules. He wrote the opinion in Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co. (1922), which struck down a congressional tax aimed at ending child labour. He also ruled in Stafford v. Wallace that Congress could closely regulate stockyard operations that were closely tied to interstate commerce.
• Taft did not often disagree, but he did disagree with a decision in Adkins v. Children’s Hospital that struck down minimum wage laws for women. His opinions also changed the balance of power between the federal government and the states. For example, in Myers v. United States (1926), he said that the president could fire appointees, and in McGrain v. Daugherty, he said that Congress could investigate. The Taft Court looked at civil rights and liberties in cases like Gitlow v. New York, Pierce v. Society of Sisters and Lum v. Rice. It backed parental and religious rights but let schools segregate by race.
• Taft pushed for an administrative staff, temporary reassignment of judges, and other ways to speed up the court system. He worked to pass laws that would create the Judicial Conference of Senior Circuit Judges and change how the Supreme Court works. This led to the Judges’ Bill of 1925, which made most appeals optional. 

DEATH

• Even though his health was getting worse, Taft stayed active on the Court. When Herbert Hoover took office in 1929, he misquoted part of the oath of office. He later admitted that he had forgotten parts of it. Taft was worried about leaving the court under Hoover, whose policies he thought were too progressive. He decided to stay on, writing that he had to stay to keep radical forces from taking over the government. His health got worse when his brother Charles died at the end of 1929. By the beginning of 1930, Taft’s health had got worse. He had trouble speaking, saw things that weren't there, and was very weak.
• Taft’s last worry as Chief Justice was who would take over for him. He did not quit until Hoover promised him that Charles Evans Hughes would be appointed instead of Justice Harlan Stone. He quit on 3 February 1930, and went back to Washington with just enough strength to respond to a tribute from the Court’s associate justices. Taft died at home on 8 March, 1930, at the age of 72. He probably died from heart disease, liver inflammation and high blood pressure. His body lay in state in the rotunda of the US Capitol. On 11 March, he became the first person to have been both president and Supreme Court justice to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.