President William Howard Taft got stuck in his bathtub on his Inauguration Day and had to be pried out by his attendants. He was over 300 pounds
William Howard Taft
1909 - 1913
27th President
William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on September 15, 1857.
William Howard Taft was his predecessors most trusted advisor. Whenever a situation became too difficult for lesser men to handle, it was Taft who was sent to "sit on the lid."
William Taft’s Vice President was James S. Sherman from 1909-1912. From 1912-1913 he did not have a Vice President.
"Big Bill" was over 300 pounds and 6’2". Needing a big bathtub, he had a 7’ long 41" wide tub installed that could accommodate 4 normal-sized men.
President Taft was the only ex-president to be a judge on the Supreme Court
The heaviest president at 332 pounds, Taft struggled all his adult life with a weight problem. He got stuck in the White House bathtub and had to have an oversized version brought in for his use.
William Howard Taft was the first president to own a car at the White House (he had the White House stables converted into a 4-car garage), to throw out the first ball to begin the professional baseball season, and the first president to be buried in the National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
Arizona became a state on February 14, 1912. Making Taft the first President of 48 states.
Taft liked milk so much that he brought his own cow to the White House. The cows name was Mooly Wolly. Mooly was replaced by another cow called Paulin. Paulin was the last cow to graze on the White House lawn.
Taft had no military experience and there were no wars fought during his term.
During his administration, the U.S. parcel post system began, and Congress approved the 16th Amendment, providing for the levying of an income tax.
"It was by all odds the most infectious chuckle in the history of politics. It started with a silent trembling of Taft’s ample stomach. The next sign was a pause in the reading of his speech, and the spread of a slow grin across his face. Then came a kind of gulp which seemed to escape without his being aware that the climax was near. Laughter followed hard on the chuckle itself, and the audience invariable joined in." (Biographer Henry F. Pringle)
William Howard Taft died on March 8, 1930 in Washington, D.C, He was 72 years and 174 days old. He was the first President to be buried in the National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. The only other President buried there is President Kennedy.
Quotes from William Taft:
I am not in favor of suffrage for women until I can be convinced that all the women desire it; and when they desire it I am in favor of giving it.
Nov. 2, 1909.
William Howard Taft
Distinguished jurist, effective administrator, but poor politician, William Howard Taft spent four uncomfortable years in the White House. Large, jovial, conscientious, he was caught in the intense battles between Progressives and conservatives, and got scant credit for the achievements of his administration.
Born in 1857, the son of a distinguished judge, he graduated from Yale, and returned to Cincinnati to study and practice law. He rose in politics through Republican judiciary appointments, through his own competence and availability, and because, as he once wrote facetiously, he always had his "plate the right side up when offices were falling."
But Taft much preferred law to politics. He was appointed a Federal circuit judge at 34. He aspired to be a member of the Supreme Court, but his wife, Helen Herron Taft, held other ambitions for him.
His route to the White House was via administrative posts. President McKinley sent him to the Philippines in 1900 as chief civil administrator. Sympathetic toward the Filipinos, he improved the economy, built roads and schools, and gave the people at least some participation in government.
President Roosevelt made him Secretary of War, and by 1907 had decided that Taft should be his successor. The Republican Convention nominated him the next year.
Taft disliked the campaign--"one of the most uncomfortable four months of my life." But he pledged his loyalty to the Roosevelt program, popular in the West, while his brother Charles reassured eastern Republicans. William Jennings Bryan, running on the Democratic ticket for a third time, complained that he was having to oppose two candidates, a western progressive Taft and an eastern conservative Taft.
Progressives were pleased with Taft’s election. "Roosevelt has cut enough hay," they said; "Taft is the man to put it into the barn." Conservatives were delighted to be rid of Roosevelt--the "mad messiah."
Taft recognized that his techniques would differ from those of his predecessor. Unlike Roosevelt, Taft did not believe in the stretching of Presidential powers. He once commented that Roosevelt "ought more often to have admitted the legal way of reaching the same ends."
Taft alienated many liberal Republicans who later formed the Progressive Party, by defending the Payne-Aldrich Act which unexpectedly continued high tariff rates. A trade agreement with Canada, which Taft pushed through Congress, would have pleased eastern advocates of a low tariff, but the Canadians rejected it. He further antagonized Progressives by upholding his Secretary of the Interior, accused of failing to carry out Roosevelt’s conservation policies.
In the angry Progressive onslaught against him, little attention was paid to the fact that his administration initiated 80 antitrust suits and that Congress submitted to the states amendments for a Federal income tax and the direct election of Senators. A postal savings system was established, and the Interstate Commerce Commission was directed to set railroad rates.
In 1912, when the Republicans renominated Taft, Roosevelt bolted the party to lead the Progressives, thus guaranteeing the election of Woodrow Wilson.
Taft, free of the Presidency, served as Professor of Law at Yale until President Harding made him Chief Justice of the United States, a position he held until just before his death in 1930. To Taft, the appointment was his greatest honor; he wrote: "I don’t remember that I ever was President."
