Editing William Howard Taft (section)

== Legacy and historical view ==
[[File:President William Howard Taft Monument (16712956154).jpg|thumb|upright|Taft's headstone at [[Arlington National Cemetery]]]]

Lurie argued that Taft did not receive the public credit for his policies that he should have. Few trusts had been broken up under Roosevelt (although the lawsuits received much publicity). Taft, more quietly than his predecessor, filed many more cases than did Roosevelt, and rejected his predecessor's contention that there was such a thing as a "good" trust. This lack of flair marred Taft's presidency; according to Lurie, Taft "was boring—honest, likable, but boring".{{sfn|Lurie|pp=196–197}} Scott Bomboy for the [[National Constitution Center]] wrote that despite being "one of the most interesting, intellectual, and versatile presidents&nbsp;... a chief justice of the United States, a wrestler at Yale, a reformer, a peace activist, and a baseball fan&nbsp;... today, Taft is best remembered as the president who was so large that he got stuck in the White House bathtub", a story that is not true.<ref name = "ncc">{{cite web|last=Bomboy|first=Scott|title=Clearing Up the William Howard Taft Bathtub Myth|url=http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2013/02/why-william-howard-taft-was-probably-never-stuck-in-his-bathtub/|date=February 6, 2013|publisher=[[National Constitution Center]]|access-date=May 29, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160529063346/http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2013/02/why-william-howard-taft-was-probably-never-stuck-in-his-bathtub/|archive-date=May 29, 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Coe|first=Alexis|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/opinion/william-howard-taft-bathtub.html|title=William Howard Taft Is Still Stuck in the Tub|department=Opinion|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=September 15, 2017|access-date=December 28, 2017|archive-date=November 3, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201103222021/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/opinion/william-howard-taft-bathtub.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Taft similarly remains known for another physical characteristic—as the last [[List of presidents of the United States with facial hair|president with facial hair]] to date.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7pdN3PnqOwMC |pages=36–37 |title=One thousand beards: a cultural history of facial hair |author=Allan D. Peterkin |isbn=9781551521077 |year=2001 |publisher=Arsenal pulp press |access-date=November 16, 2016 |archive-date=March 7, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307041110/https://books.google.com/books?id=7pdN3PnqOwMC |url-status=live }}</ref>

Mason called Taft's years in the White House "undistinguished".{{sfn|Mason|p=36}} Coletta deemed Taft to have had a solid record of bills passed by Congress, but felt he could have accomplished more with political skill.{{sfn|Coletta 1973|pp=259, 264–265}} Anderson noted that Taft's prepresidential federal service was entirely in appointed posts, and that he had never run for an important executive or legislative position, which would have allowed him to develop the skills to manipulate public opinion, as "the presidency is no place for on-the-job training".{{sfn|Anderson 1982|p=27}} According to Coletta, "in troubled times in which the people demanded progressive change, he saw the existing order as good."{{sfn|Coletta 1973|p=266}}

Inevitably linked with Roosevelt, who chose him to be president and took it away, Taft generally falls in the former's shadow.{{sfn|Coletta 1973|p=260}} Yet, a portrait of Taft as a victim of betrayal by his best friend is incomplete: as Coletta put it, "Was he a poor politician because he was victimized or because he lacked the foresight and imagination to notice the storm brewing in the political sky until it broke and swamped him?"{{sfn|Coletta 1973|p=265}} Adept at using the levers of power in a way his successor could not, Roosevelt generally got what was politically possible out of a situation. Taft was generally slow to act, and when he did, his actions often generated enemies, as in the Ballinger–Pinchot affair. Roosevelt was able to secure positive coverage in the newspapers; Taft was reticent talking to reporters, and, with no comment from the White House, hostile journalists filled the gaps with quotes from Taft opponents.{{sfn|Coletta 1973|pp=262–263}} Roosevelt engraved in public memory the image of Taft as a [[James Buchanan]]-like figure, with a narrow view of the presidency that made him unwilling to act for the public good. Anderson noted that Roosevelt's ''Autobiography'' (which placed this view in enduring form) was published after both men had left the presidency (in 1913), was intended in part to justify Roosevelt's splitting of the Republican Party, and contains not a single positive reference to the man Roosevelt had hand-picked as his successor. While Roosevelt was biased,{{sfn|Anderson 1982|pp=30–32}} he was not alone: every major newspaper reporter of that time who left reminiscences of Taft's presidency was critical of him.{{sfn|Coletta 1973|p=290}} Taft replied to his predecessor's criticism with his constitutional treatise on the powers of the presidency.{{sfn|Anderson 1982|pp=30–32}}

[[File:William Howard Taft, 4c & 50c issues.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.5|The first postage issue for Taft, a 4-cent stamp, was issued in 1930, the second, a 50-cent stamp, in 1938.<ref>Scott Specialized Catologue of U.S. Stamps, 2024, pp. 90, 108–109</ref>]]

Taft was convinced history would vindicate him. After he left office, he was estimated to be in the middle of U.S. presidents by greatness, and subsequent [[Historical rankings of presidents of the United States|rankings by historians]] have largely sustained that verdict. Coletta noted that this places Taft alongside [[James Madison]], [[John Quincy Adams]] and McKinley.{{sfn|Coletta 1973|pp=255–256}} Lurie catalogued progressive innovations that took place under Taft, and argued that historians have overlooked them because Taft was not an effective political writer or speaker.{{sfn|Lurie|p=198}} According to Gould, "the clichés about Taft's weight, his maladroitness in the White House, and his conservatism of thought and doctrine have an element of truth, but they fail to do justice to a shrewd commentator on the political scene, a man of consummate ambition, and a resourceful practitioner of the internal politics of his party."{{sfn|Gould 2014|pp=3–4}} Anderson deemed Taft's success in becoming both president and chief justice "an astounding feat of inside judicial and Republican party politics, played out over years, the likes of which we are not likely to see again in American history".{{sfn|Anderson 2000|p=345}}

Taft has been rated among the greatest of the chief justices;{{sfn|Coletta 1989|p=xviii}} later Supreme Court Justice [[Antonin Scalia]] noted that this was "not so much on the basis of his opinions, perhaps because many of them ran counter to the ultimate sweep of history".{{sfn|Scalia|p=849}} A successor as chief justice, [[Earl Warren]], concurred: "In Taft's case, the symbol, the tag, the label usually attached to him is 'conservative.' It is certainly not of itself a term of opprobrium even when bandied by the critics, but its use is too often confused with 'reactionary.'"{{sfn|Warren|p=360}} Most commentators agree that Taft's most significant contribution as chief justice was his advocacy for reform of the high court, urging and ultimately gaining improvement in the Court's procedures and facilities.{{sfn|Warren|p=360}}{{sfn|Mason|p=37}}{{sfn|Coletta 1989|p=201}} Mason cited enactment of the Judges' Bill of 1925 as Taft's major achievement on the Court.{{sfn|Mason|p=37}} According to Anderson, as chief justice, Taft "was as aggressive in the pursuit of his agenda in the judicial realm as Theodore Roosevelt was in the presidential".{{sfn|Anderson 2000|p=352}}

[[File:William Howard Taft National Historic Site.JPG|thumb|Taft's boyhood home in Cincinnati]]
The house in Cincinnati in which Taft was born is now the [[William Howard Taft National Historic Site]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/wiho/adhi/adhi1.htm|access-date=February 26, 2016|publisher=[[National Park Service]]|title=Chapter 1: The Property: Its Development and Historical Associations|work=William Howard Taft National Historic Site: An Administrative History|date=December 1986|last=Lee|first=Antoinette J.|archive-date=March 5, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305200147/http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/wiho/adhi/adhi1.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> Taft was one of the first Gold Medal Honorees of the [[National Institute of Social Sciences]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.socialsciencesinstitute.org/gold-medal-honorees|title=Gold Medal Honorees|publisher=[[National Institute of Social Sciences]]|access-date=April 23, 2020|archive-date=July 2, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190702153336/http://www.socialsciencesinstitute.org/gold-medal-honorees|url-status=dead}}</ref> His son [[Robert A. Taft|Robert]] was a significant political figure, becoming [[Senate Majority Leader]] and three times a major contender for the Republican nomination for president. A conservative, each time he was defeated by a candidate backed by the more liberal [[Eastern Establishment]] wing of the party.{{efn|[[Wendell Willkie]] in 1940, [[Thomas Dewey]] in 1948 and [[Dwight Eisenhower]] in 1952}}<ref name="ROBERTANB">{{Cite book |last=Rae |first=Nicol C. |url=https://archive.org/details/lookitupbookofpr00blas_2 |title=Taft, Robert Alphonso |date=February 2000 |publisher=Random House |isbn=978-0-679-80358-4 |access-date=February 26, 2016 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>

Lurie concluded his account of William Taft's career:

{{blockquote|While [[National Cherry Blossom Festival#History of the cherry trees|the fabled cherry trees]] in Washington represent a suitable monument for Nellie Taft, there is no memorial to her husband, except perhaps the magnificent home for his Court—one for which he eagerly planned. But he died even before ground was broken for the structure. As he reacted to his overwhelming defeat for reelection in 1912, Taft had written that "I must wait for years if I would be vindicated by the people&nbsp; ... I am content to wait." Perhaps he has waited long enough.{{sfn|Lurie|p=200}}}}