PP

Politics and Prose

Walter Stahr — William Howard Taft: A Great American Life — at Conn Ave

Governance & Democracy

About this Event

William Howard Taft was perhaps not a great president, although his limited view of the president's role looks better today than it did at the time. But Taft's true claim to greatness lies in his work before and after the White House: five decades of selfless public service culminating as one of the most transformational chief justices in American history. Taft was the only president to have spent much of his career as a judge, first in the state court system in Ohio, then as a federal judge on the Sixth Circuit. He dreamed of serving on the United States Supreme Court and yet, more than once, he declined a seat in order to continue his work as America's first civilian governor in the Philippines. When he returned to Washington, he took a place in Roosevelt's cabinet,…

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