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William Howard Taft
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William Howard Taft, 1857-1930. 27th President of the United States, 1909-1913; Chief Justice of the United States, 1921-1930. Partially printed Document Signed, Wm H Taft, Washington, D.C., March 11, 1911. Countersigned by Postmaster General Frank H. Hitchcock.
This is an attractive document in which Taft appoints William T. Elliott the postmaster at Houston, Missouri. The gold foil seal is perfect and completely intact. Taft’s signature is slightly brushed in a couple of places, and the document has a bit of age toning and scattered wrinkles from being rolled up for nearly a century, but this is nevertheless a fine example.
Taft, an Ohio native, is the only person ever to serve as both President and Chief Justice. The son of a distinguished judge, and a jurist at heart himself, his lifelong ambition was to be on the Supreme Court. But his wife had other ideas.
Taft graduated from Yale Law School and returned to Cincinnati to study and practice law. He rose in prominence through Republican judicial appointments. He became a judge of the United States Court of Appeals, a step below the Supreme Court, at age 34. But politics beckoned. President William McKinley made him chief civil administrator of the Philippines in 1900. A capable administrator, Taft he improved the Philippine economy, built roads and schools, and gave the people some participation in government. Later President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Taft to be Secretary of War and decided that Taft should then succeed him in the White House. Taft was elected President in 1908.
But Taft alienated Roosevelt and the progressive wing of the Republican Party. In 1912, Roosevelt challenged Taft for the Republican nomination. When Taft was renominated, Roosevelt ran a third-party candidacy on the Progressive Party ticket. That split the Republican vote, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected.
Taft was glad to leave the presidency. He returned to Yale, where he served as a law professor until 1921, when President Warren G. Harding appointed him Chief Justice. He served as Chief Justice until just before he died in 1930. That appointment was Taft’s greatest honor: “I don’t remember,” he wrote, “that I ever was president.”
Hitchcock (1869-1935) has his own place in history. As Postmaster General, he established both parcel post and the first air mail service, between Garden City and Mineola, New York, in 1911.
Unframed.
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