ABSTRACT

Taft, Robert (1889-1953), American Republican Senator: born at Cincinnati, Ohio, eldest son of William TAFT. Robert Taft studied law at both Yale and Harvard, working for a time on food administration in Europe after the First World War before practising law in his home state. He was returned to the Senate in 1938 and at once showed himself a vigorous opponent of Franklin ROOSEVELT’S domestic and foreign policy and an extreme isolationist. He was outmanoeuvred in seeking the Republican nomination in 1940, even though a stronger contender than the eventual choice, WILLKIE. In 1947 Robert Taft was the main sponsor of the Labour Management Act, better known as the TaftHartley Act, which restricted union power and outlawed the closed shop. Despite the publicity which followed this measure he failed to secure nomination yet again in 1948. In 1950 he became the strongest Republican critic of involvement in Korea. His old-fashioned isolationism seemed, at first, to appeal to the Chicago Party Convention of 1952, but the potential vote-winning of EISENHOWER’S candidacy robbed him of selection for a third time. He died of cancer a few months later, his brand of conservatism passing to the newly elected Senator from Arizona, Barry GOLDWATER. J.Gunther: Inside USA (1949). Taft, William Howard (1857-1930), President of the United States from 1909 to 1913: born at Cincinnati, his father being active in Republican politics and serving in the Cabinet of President GRANT in 1876-7. William Taft was educated at Yale and Cincinnati Law School. He practised law in Ohio, becoming Solicitor-General under President HARRISON in 1890, and was the first of the civilian governors in the Philippines from 1901 to 1904, when he entered the Cabinet of Theodore ROOSEVELT as Secretary of War. In 1909 he defeated BRYAN to become President. His years at the White House were infelicitous, for he could not handle Congress while his natural conservatism drove many liberal Republicans out of the party. In the unusual 1912 election he gained fewer votes than either the Democrat Woodrow WILSON or his predecessor, Roosevelt, now standing as an independent progressive. After nine years as a professor at Yale, Taft was appointed Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court in 1921, an office he held with distinguished detachment for the remainder of his life. H.E.Pringle: Life and Times of William Howard Taft (2 vols) (New York, 1939); P.E.Coletta: W.H.Taft (Lawrence, Kans., 1984).