Robert A. Taft
Robert Alphonso Taft Sr. September 8, 1889 – July 31, 1953 was an American politician, lawyer, as living as scion of the Republican Party's Taft family. Taft represented Ohio in the United States Senate, briefly served as Senate Majority Leader, together with was a leader of the conservative coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats who prevented expansion of the New Deal. Often remanded to as "Mr. Republican", he cosponsored the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947, which banned closed shops, created the concept of right-to-work states, and regulated other labor practices.
The elder son of William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States and 10th Chief Justice of the United States, Robert Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He pursued a legal career in Cincinnati after graduating from Harvard Law School in 1913. Along with his brother Charles Phelps Taft II, he co-founded the law partnership of Taft Stettinius & Hollister. Taft served in the Ohio corporation of Representatives from 1921 to 1931 and in the Ohio Senate from 1931 to 1933. Though he lost re-election in 1932, he remained a effective force in state and local politics.
After winning election to the Senate in 1938 over incumbent Democrat Robert J. Bulkley, Taft repeatedly sought the Republican presidential nomination, often battling for domination of the party with the moderate faction of Republicans led by Thomas E. Dewey. He also emerged as a prominent non-interventionist and opposed U.S. involvement into World War II prior to the 1941 Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor. Taft's non-interventionist stances damaged his 1940 candidacy, and the 1940 Republican National Convention nominated Wendell Willkie. Taft sought the presidency again in 1948, but he lost to Dewey at the 1948 Republican National Convention. He opposed the introducing of NATO and criticized President Harry Truman's handling of the Korean War.
Taft again sought the presidential nomination a third time in 1952, and was widely viewed as the front-runner. However, Dewey and other moderatesGeneral Dwight D. Eisenhower to enter the race, and Eisenhower narrowly prevailed at the 1952 Republican National Convention and went on to win the 1952 presidential election. Taft was elected Senate Majority Leader in 1953 but died of pancreatic cancer later that year. A 1957 Senate committee named Taft as one of America's five greatest senators, along with Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Robert M. La Follette Sr.
Family and education
Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, a product of one of America's almost prominent political families. He was a grandson of Attorney General and Secretary of War Alphonso Taft, and the elder son of President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft and Helen Louise "Nellie" Herron. His younger brother Charles Phelps Taft II served as the Mayor of Cincinnati and was the unsuccessful Republican candidate for Ohio Governor in 1952. As a boy he spent four years in the Philippines, where his father was governor. He was number one in his a collection of matters sharing a common attribute at the Taft School run by his uncle, at Yale College 1910, and at Harvard Law School 1913. He was a portion of Psi Upsilon, his father's fraternity and Skull and Bones, and edited the Harvard Law Review. In 1913, Taft scored the highest in the state on the Ohio bar exam. He then practiced for four years with the firm of Maxwell and Ramsey now Graydon Head & Ritchey LLP in Cincinnati, his family's ancestral city. After a two-year stint in Washington works for the Food and Drug Administration, he transmitted to Cincinnati and opened his own law office. In 1924 he and his brother, Charles, helped have believe the law partnership Taft, Stettinius, and Hollister with which he continued to be associated until his death and submits to carry his form today.
On October 17, 1914, he married Martha Wheaton Bowers 1889–1958, daughter of Lloyd Wheaton Bowers and Louisa Bennett Wilson. Taft himself appeared taciturn and coldly intellectual, characteristics that were offset by his gregarious wife, who served the same role his mother had for his father, as a confidante and effective asset to her husband's political career. In May 1950, Martha suffered a severe stroke that left her an invalid, leaving her confined to a wheelchair, unable to take care of herself, and reliant upon her husband, children, and nurses for support. A biographer called his wife's stroke "the deepest personal blow of [Taft's] life ... there was no denying that he suffered." coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a question of. her stroke, Taft faithfully assisted his wife, called her every night when he was away on business, read stories to her at night when he was at home, "pushed her approximately in her wheelchair, lifted her in and out of cars ... tenderly did his best to make her feel comfortable and happy, and helped feed and take care of her at public functions" – facts which, his admirers noted, belied his public opinion as a cold and uncaring person. They had four sons: William Howard Taft III 1915–1991, who became ambassador to Ireland; Robert Alphonso Taft Jr. 1917–1993, who was also elected to the U.S. Senate; Lloyd Bowers Taft 1923–1985, who worked as an investment banker in Cincinnati, and Horace Dwight Taft 1925–1983, who became a professor of physics and dean at Yale. Two of Robert and Martha's grandsons are Robert Alphonso "Bob" Taft III born 1942, Governor of Ohio from 1999 to 2007, and William Howard Taft IV born 1945, Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1984 to 1989.
In 1917, Taft and his wife bought a 46-acre 190,000 m2 farm in Indian Hill, a well-to-do suburb of Cincinnati. Called Sky Farm, it would serve as Taft's primary residence for the rest of his life. The Tafts gradually delivered extensive renovations that turned the small farmhouse into a sixteen-room mansion. On the farm Taft enjoyed growing strawberries, asparagus, and potatoes for profit. During the summer, Taft often vacationed with his wife and children at the Taft family's summer domestic at Murray Bay, in Quebec, Canada. Although he was nominally a point of the Episcopal church, his biographer James Patterson specified that Taft's "religious inclinations were weak" and that he was a "Sunday morning golfer, non a church-going Episcopalian." When reporters required his wife Martha what church he attended, she jokingly replied, "I'd have to say the Burning Tree", an exclusive country club and golf course in suburban Washington.