William Taft Dbq

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I. Early life

President William Taft was the 27th president of the United States of America. He was the president after Theodore Roosevelt. He was a very intelligent man and accomplished great things throughout his life time.

On September 15, 1857 in Cincinnati Ohio, William Howard Taft was born. His father 's name was Alphonso Taft, who was a lawyer and served as President Grant’s attorney general and the Secretary of War, then after that he was an ambassador Austria-Hungary and Russia Under President Chester A. Arthur . His mother’s name was Louis Torrey Taft and was a school teacher . President Taft had five full siblings, Four brothers and a younger sister. Of which he was the second oldest. Taft 's

He was 22 and she was 18. They didn’t start dating regularly tell 1882. Then in April 1885 William proposed to Helen. She did not answer until May, but the answer was yes! On June 19th of 1886, William Taft and Helen Herron got married at the house of the bride 's parents in Cincinnati. For their honeymoon, they spent one day in New York City, four days at Sea Bright, New Jersey, and then set off on a three-month tour of Europe.

After they got married they moved into their own house in Cincinnati. Taft, at the time, had been a very well known lawyer. It helped that his father was a great politician too. In 1887, taft was called to fill in term for a judge in the Ohio Supreme Court by the governor of Ohio. The next year he was elected to a five-year term. William and Helen Taft had their first son on September 8, 1889 and named him Robert Taft.

In 1890, at the age 32, William Taft became the 6th U.S. Solicitor General under president Benjamin Harrison. During all this excitement they had another child. On August 1st, 1891 they had a daughter and named her Helen Taft.

William Taft was the first president who put government owned land aside where oil and coal had been found.

Taft did not do to much for foreign affairs except he was big on trying to expand the U.S. He was able to pass a program called “ Dollar diplomacy” which was made to “encourage U.S. investments in South and Central America, the Caribbean, and the Far East” (Millercenter.org).

Taft has been said to be the unhappiest president. People started to loose faith in him. Roosevelt 's followers just didn’t think that William could fulfill what Roosevelt wanted to. They also thought that he wasn’t doing much as president, which was sort of true. He didn’t pass to many laws or bills, but what he did do did help the U.S.

In 1912, Taft decided to try to run for another term. On november 5, 1912 the votes came in. Sadly Taft didn’t win. The Electoral votes were with Woodrow Wilson winning at 42%, Roosevelt at 27%, Taft at 23%, and Debs at 6%. Taft was a little disappointed that he lost, but happy to be able to get out of the president 's chair.