William Howard Taft (redirected from President Taft)

Taft, William Howard 

Born Sept. 15, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio; died Mar. 8, 1930, in Washington, D.C. US statesman.

Taft was educated as a lawyer. In 1900 he was appointed president of the Philippine Commission, whose purpose was to establish a US colonial supremacy in the islands, and from 1901 to 1904 he was civil governor of the Philippines. From 1904 to 1908 he was secretary of war, and in 1905 he participated in the drawing up of an agreement between the USA and Japan. In 1906, Taft directed the suppression of a liberation movement in Cuba.

From 1909 to 1913, Taft was the Republican president of the United States. He openly supported monopolies and in 1909 approved a tariff law that, on the whole, maintained the protectionist tariff adopted under President T. Roosevelt. The Taft administration pursued a policy of subordination of the countries of Latin America and did not stop short of the use of armed forces, as seen in the intervention in Nicaragua in 1912. Taft was defeated in the presidential election of 1912. From 1913 to 1921 he was a law professor at Yale University. In October 1921, Taft became chief justice of the US Supreme Court. Taft was against diplomatic recognition of the USSR.