Every Day Is Special: September 15 - Happy Birthday, President Taft

September 15 - Happy Birthday, President Taft

Posted on September 15, 2017

President AND Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court?

Wow!

There is only one person who has held both of these highly esteemed jobs, and that is William Howard Taft.

Taft was a court reporter, a judge, the first civilian governor of the Philippines, and the Secretary of War before he became President. He only served one term as president, but afterwards he became a professor at prestigious Yale University and then, nine years after leaving the presidency, he achieved his lifelong goal of serving as Chief Justice of SCOTUS.

So I bet he'd say, if he were alive today, "It's all good."

(Actually, what he did say was meant to show that he valued the Chief Justice job way-way-way more than he did the presidency: "I don't remember that I was ever president.")

Here are some other things that make Taft unique:

Because he served as Chief Justice, Taft became the first president to swear in other presidents - administering the oath of office to both Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.

Taft also was the fellow who got the Supreme Court building constructed - before 1935, SCOTUS would issue rulings from various different rooms in the Capitol building.

Taft was the first president to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, a U.S. military cemetery across the Potomac River from the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. (Only one other president, John F. Kennedy, is buried there, although all U.S. presidents are eligible to be interred there because they oversaw the armed forces as Commanders in Chief.)

He was the first president to throw the ceremonial "first pitch." He apparently threw it from the stands rather than from the mound, and he didn't do a great job with his throw - oh, well!

Taft was a large man. He was nicknamed Big Bill and Big Lub. And there is a story (quite likely not true) about him getting stuck in a tub; what IS true is that he once got into a tub that was too full of water, and he cause an overflow problem that became a leak onto whoever was occupying the lower floor.

(But Taft lost 70 pounds, after he left the White House, by giving up bread, potatoes, pork, and liquor.)

Taft seemed to have a sleep problem. His wife called him Sleeping Beauty - and he would snooze for 10 or 15 minutes at a time, every half hour or so, during operas, church services, funerals, and even important state dinners!