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William Howard Taft
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William Howard Taft was the son of Alphonso Taft, Secretary of War and Attorney General in the cabinet of President Grant. William grew up to be a respectable Republican jurist and administrator, serving under Teddy Roosevelt as the first civilian governor of the Philippines, Secretary of War and a provisional governor of Cuba. He was Roosevelt's successor to the presidency, elected in 1908; he lost a re-election bid in 1912 when Roosevelt ran against him and both were defeated by Woodrow Wilson. By his own admission, Taft wasn't much of a president, and historians tend to attribute his political rise to the ambitions of his wife, Helen "Nellie" Taft. Nonetheless, he was by all accounts a likable fellow with a great legal mind. In 1921 Taft became Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, resigning just before his death in 1930.
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William Howard Taft was the only president who ... served as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, an office in which he was far more successful and happy. "Don't sit up nights thinking about making me president," he said six years before his election. "Any party which would nominate me would make a great mistake." He was right. The presidency was a painful interlude in an otherwise distinguished career as a lawyer and jurist. He was chosen by his predecessor, the charismatic Theodore Roosevelt, to be the Republican nominee.
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William Howard Taft would have much preferred it if his White House predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, had appointed him to the Supreme Court. But Roosevelt had other plans for this man, who had been one of his most trusted advisers. In November 1908, the good-natured Taft found himself elected to the presidency as Roosevelt's hand-picked successor.
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William Howard Taft came from a distinguished Ohio family. He was eduated at Yale where he was the class salutatorian. He studied at Cincinnati Law School and was admitted to the bar at age 23. Taft quickly became involved in Republican politics. By the time he was 30, he had been appointed to the Ohio Superior Court. He remained there three years when President Benjamin Harrison appointed Taft as his solicitor general.
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In 1910, William Howard Taft became the first president to throw out the opening pitch for a professional baseball season. He was ... the first president to have cars at the White House, and he helped start the "tradition" of federal income taxes. Taft, who once said, "politics makes me sick," fulfilled a lifelong ambition when he was named Supreme Court chief justice nine years after his presidency ended.
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William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 15, 1857. Both his father and his grandfather were eminent judges. After graduating in 1878 from Yale University, Taft attended the law school at the University of Cincinnati. He began practicing law in Ohio in 1880. By 1887, Taft was a superior court judge. In 1889, at age 32, Taft had the temerity to urge others to convince President Benjamin Harrison, a lawyer, to appoint him to the Court.
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William Howard Taft