William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft PDF Author: Paolo Enrico Coletta
Publisher: Westport : Meckler
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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The Chief Justiceship of William Howard Taft, 1921–1930

The Chief Justiceship of William Howard Taft, 1921–1930 PDF Author: Jonathan Lurie
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611179882
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
A study of the Supreme Court tenure of the only US president to serve as chief justice provides a unique perspective on 1920s America. In this book, Jonathan Lurie offers a comprehensive examination of the Supreme Court tenure of the only person to have held the offices of president of the United States and chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. William Howard Taft joined the Court during the Jazz Age and the era of prohibition, a period of disillusion and retreat from the idealism reflected during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency. Lurie considers how conservative trends at this time were reflected in key decisions of Taft’s court. Although Taft was considered an undistinguished chief executive, such a characterization cannot be applied to his tenure as chief justice. Lurie demonstrates that Taft’s leadership on this tribunal, matched by his productive relations with Congress, in effect created the modern Supreme Court. Furthermore he draws on the unpublished letters Taft wrote to his three children, Robert, Helen, and Charles, generally once a week. His missives contain an intriguing mixture of family news, insights concerning contemporaneous political issues, and occasional commentary on his fellow justices and cases under consideration. Lurie structures his study in parallel with the eight full terms in which Taft occupied the center seat, examining key decisions while avoiding legal jargon wherever possible. The high point of Taft’s chief justiceship was the period from 1921 to 1925. The second part of his tenure was marked by slow decline as his health worsened with each passing year. By 1930 he was forced to resign, and his death soon followed. In an epilogue Lurie explains why Taft is still regarded as an outstanding chief justice—if not a great jurist—and why this distinction is important. “Conflicts from the early twentieth century endure, and Lurie gives us old and new perspectives from which to understand a living Constitution.” —Journal of American History

William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft PDF Author: Paolo Enrico Coletta
Publisher: Westport : Meckler
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description


A Bibliography of Books and Documents Written about the One Hundred Men who Have Sat as Supreme Court Justices, 1789-1971

A Bibliography of Books and Documents Written about the One Hundred Men who Have Sat as Supreme Court Justices, 1789-1971 PDF Author: James A. Hightower
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft PDF Author: Jeffrey Rosen
Publisher: Times Books
ISBN: 0805069542
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
Highlights the life and accomplishments of the twenty-seventh president of the United States, also the only man in history to hold the top job in two of the three branches of United States government.

William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft PDF Author: Jonathan Lurie
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139502174
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
In this biographical study of the only American ever to have been both President and Chief Justice of the United States, Jonathan Lurie reassesses William Howard Taft's multiple careers, which culminated in Taft's election to the presidency in 1908 as the chosen successor to Theodore Roosevelt. By 1912, however, the relationship between Taft and Roosevelt had ruptured. Lurie re-examines the Taft–Roosevelt friendship and concludes that it rested on flimsy ground. He also places Taft in a progressive context, taking Taft's own self-description as 'a believer in progressive conservatism' as the starting point. At the end of his biography, Lurie concludes that this label is accurate when applied to Taft.

Proceedings of the Bar and Officers of the Supreme Court of the United States in Memory of William Howard Taft, December 13, 1930

Proceedings of the Bar and Officers of the Supreme Court of the United States in Memory of William Howard Taft, December 13, 1930 PDF Author: United States. Supreme Court
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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The Bully Pulpit

The Bully Pulpit PDF Author: Doris Kearns Goodwin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451673795
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 912

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Book Description
Pulitzer Prize–winning author and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s dynamic history of Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft and the first decade of the Progressive era, that tumultuous time when the nation was coming unseamed and reform was in the air. Winner of the Carnegie Medal. Doris Kearns Goodwin’s The Bully Pulpit is a dynamic history of the first decade of the Progressive era, that tumultuous time when the nation was coming unseamed and reform was in the air. The story is told through the intense friendship of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft—a close relationship that strengthens both men before it ruptures in 1912, when they engage in a brutal fight for the presidential nomination that divides their wives, their children, and their closest friends, while crippling the progressive wing of the Republican Party, causing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to be elected, and changing the country’s history. The Bully Pulpit is also the story of the muckraking press, which arouses the spirit of reform that helps Roosevelt push the government to shed its laissez-faire attitude toward robber barons, corrupt politicians, and corporate exploiters of our natural resources. The muckrakers are portrayed through the greatest group of journalists ever assembled at one magazine—Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens, and William Allen White—teamed under the mercurial genius of publisher S.S. McClure. Goodwin’s narrative is founded upon a wealth of primary materials. The correspondence of more than four hundred letters between Roosevelt and Taft begins in their early thirties and ends only months before Roosevelt’s death. Edith Roosevelt and Nellie Taft kept diaries. The muckrakers wrote hundreds of letters to one another, kept journals, and wrote their memoirs. The letters of Captain Archie Butt, who served as a personal aide to both Roosevelt and Taft, provide an intimate view of both men. The Bully Pulpit, like Goodwin’s brilliant chronicles of the Civil War and World War II, exquisitely demonstrates her distinctive ability to combine scholarly rigor with accessibility. It is a major work of history—an examination of leadership in a rare moment of activism and reform that brought the country closer to its founding ideals.

William Howard Taft and the First Motoring Presidency, 1909-1913

William Howard Taft and the First Motoring Presidency, 1909-1913 PDF Author: Michael L. Bromley
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786429526
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 447

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Book Description
William Howard Taft declared, "I am sure the automobile coming in as a toy of the wealthier class is going to prove the most useful of them all to all classes, rich and poor." Unlike his predecessors, who made public their disdain for the automobile, Taft saw the automobile industry as a great source of wealth for this country. The first president to acquire a car in office (Congress granted him three automobiles), Taft is responsible for there being a White House garage in 1909. This is a meticulously researched reappraisal of the oft-maligned Taft presidency focusing particularly on his cars, his relationship to the automobile and the role of the automobile in the politics of his day. Appendices provide information on the White House garage and stable, Taft's speech to the Automobile Club of America and a glossary of terms and names.

The William Howard Taft Presidency

The William Howard Taft Presidency PDF Author: Lewis L. Gould
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700616748
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The only president to later serve as chief justice of the United States, William Howard Taft remarked in the 1920s that "I don't remember that I ever was President." Historians have agreed, and Taft is usually portrayed, when written about at all, as nothing more than a failed chief executive. In this provocative new study, the first treatment of the Taft presidency in four decades, Lewis L. Gould presents a compelling assessment of Taft's accomplishments and setbacks in office. Rich in human interest and fresh analysis of the events of Taft's four years in Washington, Gould's book shows why Taft's presidency is very much worth remembering on its own terms. Gould argues that Taft wanted to be president and had an ambitious agenda when he took power in March 1909. Approaching his duties more as a judge than as a charismatic executive in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt, Taft soon found himself out of step with public opinion. Gould shows how the Payne-Aldrich Tariff and the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy squandered Taft's political capital and prepared the ground for Democratic victories in the elections of 1910 and 1912. His seamless narrative provides innovative treatments of these crucial episodes to make Taft's presidency more understandable than in any previous account. On Canadian Reciprocity, Dollar Diplomacy, and international arbitration, Gould's well-researched work goes beyond earlier stale clichs about Taft's administration to link his tenure to the evolution of the modern presidency. Taft emerges as a hard-working but flawed executive who lacked the excitement of Theodore Roosevelt or the inspiration of Woodrow Wilson. The break with Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 doomed the Taft presidency, and Gould supplies an evenhanded analysis of the erosion of their once warm friendship. At bottom, the two men clashed about the nature of presidential power, and Gould traces with insight how this personal and ideological rupture influenced the future of the Republican party and the course of American politics. In Gould's skilled hands, this neglected presidency again comes alive. Leaving the White House in 1913, Taft wrote that "the people of the United States did not owe me another election." What his presidency deserved is the lively and wise appraisal of his record in office contained in this superb book.

Rufus Jones (1863-1948)

Rufus Jones (1863-1948) PDF Author: Claus Bernet
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783631589304
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
Rufus Jones (1863-1948) helped organize the Quäkerspeisung (Quaker feeding effort), saving millions from starvation after the First World War. In Germany he is best known for having travelled to Berlin to seek a personal meeting with Hitler after the Kristallnacht in 1938. And, at the conclusion of a long life devoted to service, it was largely due to Jones that the American Friends Service Committee was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947. But Jones was also the quintessential «American scholar», seeking to harmonize theory and practice. He was a pivotal figure of the 20thcentury who stayed in close touch with authors and statesmen the world over. He earned a reputation as a modern mystic and an active pacifist, and was regarded as the moral conscience of his era. His scholarship encompassed education and pedagogy, philosophical questions, church and Quaker history, as well as the political issues of the day. Jones dealt with such issues as justice, democracy, and child-rearing. His ideas are still alive today and still arouse controversy. He was particularly anxious to avoid the cultivation of an elite, pleading instead for individual growth and personality development. Over the course of his life, he was awarded twelve academic titles, taught at numerous universities, delivered countless lectures, and was one of the first theologians to recognise the significance of radio and to make full use of it. To this day Rufus Jones is still honored as a «seer», «Protestant mystic», and even as a «Master Quaker» and «Quaker Giant». It is time also to take a critical look at these honors.