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<img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources/taft-first-philippine-assembly-1907.webp" alt="William Howard Taft addressing the audience at the Philippine Assembly in the Manila Grand Opera House." />
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(William Howard Taft addressing the audience at the Philippine Assembly in the Manila Grand Opera House.)
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After his preparatory schooling in his native town,  Taft graduated at <a href="https://www.yale.edu/" target="_blank" class="news-link-ext" rel="noreferrer">Yale University</a> in 1878, studied law at  University of Cincinnati and was called to the bar in 1880, entered private practice,  and worked as a judge in Ohio Superior Court and in the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.  
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In early 1900, President <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McKinley" class="news-link-ext" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">William McKinley</a> called Taft to Washington and tasked him with setting up a civilian government in the Philippines, which had become a U.S. protectorate after the Spanish-American War of 1898. Though hesitant, Taft accepted the post of chairman of the <a href="https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/1581/the-taft-commission-pioneering-civil-governance-in-the-philippines" class="news_link">Second Philippine Commission</a>, with the knowledge that it would position him well to advance further in national government.
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Taft's sympathetic administration in the Philippines marked a dramatic departure from the brutal tactics used by the U.S. military government since 1898. Taft improved the island economy and infrastructure and allowed the people at least some voice in government. Though sympathetic to the Filipino people and popular among them, he believed they needed considerable guidance and instruction before they could be capable of self-rule, and predicted a long period of U.S. involvement.  The Philippines would not gain independence until 1946.
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<img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources/william-howard-taft.webp" alt="Official White House portrait of William Howard Taft, painted in 1911 by Anders Zorn" />
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Official White House portrait of William Howard Taft, painted in 1911 by Anders Zorn
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After McKinley was assassinated in 1901, President <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt" class="news-link-ext" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Theodore Roosevelt</a> twice offered Taft a Supreme Court appointment, but he declined in order to stay in the Philippines. In 1904, he agreed to return and become Roosevelt's Secretary of War, on condition that he retained supervision of Filipino affairs.
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Roosevelt, who had pledged not to run for a third term in office, began promoting Taft as his successor. Though he disliked campaigning, Taft a Republican,  agreed to mount a presidential run in 1908 at the urging of his ambitious wife, and soundly defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan by pledging to continue Roosevelt's program of progressive reforms.
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By 1912, Roosevelt was so incensed with Taft and the conservative Republicans that he chose to break from the party and form his own Progressive Party, the Bull Moose Party. In the general election that year, the divide among Republicans handed the White House to the progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who received 435 electoral votes to Roosevelt's 88. Taft received only 8 electoral votes.
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Relieved to be leaving the White House, Taft took a position teaching constitutional law at Yale University Law School. In 1921, President <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_G._Harding" class="news-link-ext" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Warren Harding</a> fulfilled Taft's lifelong dream by appointing him Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. In that post, Taft improved the organization and efficiency of the United States' highest court.
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Often remembered as being the most obese US president, Taft married Helen "Nettie" Herron, the daughter of another prominent local Ohio lawyer and Republican Party activist; the couple would have three children.  
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September 15, 1857: William Howard Taft, first Civil Governor of the Philippines, was born at Cincinnati, Ohio