Taft, Robert Alphonso

(1889-1953)

   Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Robert A. Taft was the son of William Howard Taft, president of the United States from 1908 to 1912 and chief justice on the Supreme Court from 1921 to 1930. Taft graduated from Yale University in 1910 and Harvard Law School in 1913. He practiced law in Cincinnati and during World War I worked with Herbert Hoover at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He returned to his law practice after the war but was elected as a Republican to the Ohio state legislature in 1921, where he served until 1930 when he was elected to the state senate. Taft was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1938 and was an outspoken critic of the New Deal and a defender of what was seen as traditional values of individualism. He was also an isolationist and opposed the revisions to the neutrality legislation in the late 1930s, the Lend-Lease Act, and the Destroyers-for-Bases Agreement. Although once in the war Taft supported the effort, he nonetheless appeared to be in favor of a negotiated peace with Germany. Taft was reelected in 1944, and after the war he continued to oppose big government but accepted federal aid to education, federal housing programs, and even national health provision. He maintained his isolationist position and did not see the Soviet Union as a threat. While he accepted the United Nations (UN), he opposed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and involvement in the Korean War. He also criticized President Harry S. Truman’s policy toward China and as part of the China lobby accused the president of being “soft on communism.” He also supported Joseph McCarthy’s attacks on the administration. However, Taft’s most significant contribution to postwar politics was the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, aimed to curb the power of trade unions. Although he was seen as “Mr. Republican,” Taft failed to win his party’s nomination for the presidency in 1940 and again in 1948 and 1952. He died of cancer in 1953.