William Howard Taft

    I was born as William Howard Taft, a scion of a long-prominent family,  in Cincinnati on September 15, 1857. My father, Alphonso Taft, had a distinguished career in law and foreign service. Alphonso Taft was a state judge from 1865-72, U.S. Secretary of War in 1876 (a position his son would later hold), U.S. Attorney General from 1876-77, Minister to Austria-Hungary from 1882-1884, and Minister to Russia from 1884-1885.
      Then, at age 30, I served as judge on the Superior Court in Cincinnati for three years, before being appointed Solicitor General of the United States in 1890.Continuing my rather meteoric rise in the legal profession, I was appointed by President Benjamin Harrison as a judge of the newly created Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, at age 34. I served on that court from 1892-1900. My hard work would eventually lead me to become President after Roosevelt, though it was a rather uneventful term.
       I was widely praised for my work in the Philippines, in sponsoring land reform, road building, and honest and efficient government. In the Philippines, I demonstrated that my talent as an administrator was equal to his prowess as a jurist. As Chief of the Supreme Court I was concerned about the delay and inefficiency in the federal court system. My first task was to secure the passage of The Judges Act in 1922. The act was the first major reform of the federal judiciary since 1789. It gave the Chief Justice more power over the federal courts-I used it to reduce delay and streamline operations.
       Most legal scholars rate me as a good, if conservative, Chief Justice. I would usually side with "property rights" over labor and government power over civil rights. These views were generally shared by my colleagues on the court at the time, with the notable exceptions of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and Louis D. Brandeis, who often dissented.
Link To video: http://www.history.com/topics/william-howard-taft/speeches#william-howard-taft-on-healthy-agriculture
Primary Sources:  http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/presidents/taft/memory.html