William Howard Taft

Once out of the White House, Taft went to his alma mater, which had become Yale University in 1887, to teach constitutional law. During his eight years at Yale he lectured throughout the United States and published a number of books. In time he and Roosevelt became friends again, and they worked together for the Republican ticket in the 1916 election. During World War I, in 1918, President Wilson appointed Taft cochairman of the National War Labor Board, created to mediate labor disputes during the war. After the war, Taft used his influence to support the League of Nations, an association of the world's nations that was the first international peacekeeping organization. In 1920 Warren G. Harding, a Republican from Ohio, was elected president, and in 1921, Taft secured his dream, appointment as chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Taft's service as chief justice of the Supreme Court contrasted sharply to his years as president. Cautious in his use of power in the White House, he greatly stretched the powers of the chief justice to press for judicial reform. At that time the court was swamped by a mass of litigation, much of it unimportant. Pushed by his lobbying, Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1925, which gave the Supreme Court more power over which cases it would hear. Taft also started a conference for circuit court judges and used his influence to get the Supreme Court its own building. His reform of judicial administration greatly increased the efficiency of the courts.

Judicial efficiency was of the utmost importance to Taft, for he believed that effective and just courts could help stop social unrest and prevent radical social change. Above all, he saw the Supreme Court as the guardian of the Constitution and of property rights. As he grew older, his position grew increasingly conservative. He was considered the leader of the conservative faction of the court, as opposed to the more liberal justices, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Louis Dembitz Brandeis, and Harlan F. Stone. It was during these later years that the phrase “Holmes, Brandeis, and Stone dissenting” became commonplace. Much as these dissents annoyed Taft, the years that he spent as chief justice were extremely happy ones for him.

At age 72, gravely ill, Taft retired from the court and from a lifetime of public service. He died at his home in Washington, D.C., on March 8, 1930. Taft was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in northeastern Virginia, the first president to be buried there.