The William Howard Taft Presidency

by Lewis L. Gould

The only president to later serve as chief justice of the United States, William Howard Taft remarked in the 1920s that "I don't remember that I ever was President." Historians have agreed, and Taft is usually portrayed, when written about at all, as nothing more than a failed chief executive. In this provocative new study, the first treatment of the Taft presidency in four decades, Lewis L. Gould presents a compelling assessment of Taft's accomplishments...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0700616748
• ISBN13: 9780700616749
• Release Date: October 2009
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The William Howard Taft Presidency

Most modern Americans do not have much knowledge of President William Howard Taft. Lewis L. Gould gives you in-depth accounts of the Taft Administration from policies like the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act, the party divide in the GOP which led to the mid-term election losses in 1910 to the heated 1912 GOP Presidential primary with Former Presidential Theodore Roosevelt, and the three-way 1912 presidential election. You also get to the philosophical side of William Howard Taft who believed the federal government should only make reforms within the purview of the US Constitution. He was a judge, secretary of War, and later a US Supreme Court chief justice after his one-term presidency in the 1920s. He is a little-known statesman.