William Howard Taft, 1909. [Credit: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.]
(born Sept. 15, 1857, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.—died March 8, 1930, Washington, D.C.) 27th president of the U.S. (1909–13). He served on the Ohio superior court (1887–90), as U.S. solicitor general (1890–92), and as U.S. appellate judge (1892–1900). He was appointed head of the Philippine Commission to set up a civilian government in the islands and was the Philippines' first civilian governor (1901–04).
He served as U.S. secretary of war (1904–08) under Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, who supported Taft's nomination for president in 1908. He won the election but became allied with the conservative Republicans, causing a rift with party progressives. He was again the nominee in 1912, but the split with Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Party resulted in the electoral victory of Woodrow Wilson. Taft later taught law at Yale University (1913–21), served on the National War Labor Board (1918), and was a supporter of the League of Nations. As chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1921–30), he introduced reforms that made the court more efficient. His important opinion in Myers v. U.S. (1926) upheld the president's authority to remove federal officials.
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