Many citizens of Cincinnati, linked to the South through commerce, sympathized with the Confederacy when the Civil War broke out, but Alphonso had long held anti-slavery views. He had been a delegate to the first Republican Convention in 1856, and after Ohio’s Salmon Chase failed to secure the presidential nomination in 1860, he supported Abraham Lincoln. He sold government bonds, delivered speeches promoting emancipation, and argued government cases against the Copperhead faction at the request of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. When news of General Lee’s surrender came, “the city fairly blossomed with flags, and everybody turned out to join in a rejoicing which included all parties,” Louise told her sister. “Almost every house on Mt. Auburn was lighted to its utmost extent and many were luxuriously ornamented.” Hours after the celebration came word of Lincoln’s assassination. “The transition from such a jubilee to the unlooked-for calamity of the next morning seemed too great to be believed,” she lamented. “The symbols of joy which had been universal were turned into mourning, and the city is draped and creped from one end to the other.”
Eight months after the war ended, Alphonso was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Cincinnati Superior Court bench. The following year, he was elected to a full term on the Republican ticket, and two years afterward, he was nominated and elected to the court by both Republicans and Democrats. “He was . . . a born judge,” his son Horace proudly remembered. “He had the judicial temperament, the moral courage, the ability and patience.”
The most important opinion Judge Taft rendered on the superior court upheld the right of the local school board to prohibit the reading of the Bible in public schools. He argued in a dissenting opinion that “the Constitution of the State did not recognize the Christian religion any more than it recognized the religions of any other citizens of the state” and that “the school board had an obligation as well as a right to keep religious partisanship out of the public schools.” Alphonso was forever proud of his opinion, even though it prompted fierce opposition from conservatives.
For Alphonso, nothing equaled the honor of his judicial calling; indeed, he could envision no office higher than a seat on the Supreme Court. “To be Chief Justice of the United States,” he told Salmon Chase after Lincoln had announced Chase’s appointment to the Court, “is more than to be President, in my estimation.” Nonetheless, after six years on the superior court, Alphonso recognized that his judicial salary could not meet the expenses involved in educating his large family. Reluctantly, he resigned his judgeship and returned to private practice. “No leader of the Bar ever left the court feeling that his case had been too difficult or deep for the Judge’s understanding and learning,” a distinguished lawyer wrote at the time of his resignation. “No beginner at the Bar ever left feeling that the case had been too small and unimportant for the Judge’s patience and kindness.”
Over the years, Alphonso became increasingly involved in the community life of Cincinnati. As a city councilman, he fought to extend the city line to annex a newly built section so that “rich real estate holders” living there would have to pay “their just share of taxes.” He joined future president Rutherford B. Hayes, future Supreme Court justice Stanley Matthews, and lawyer John W. Herron, Nellie’s father, as charter members of the Literary Club. And Alphonso and Louise were instrumental in founding the House of Refuge, a progressive reform school designed to return delinquent children to “the path of virtue and integrity.” Taking a liberal perspective, Alphonso argued that “these children are unfortunate rather than criminal.” Their delinquency, he maintained, was “not the product of nature” but rather of the “cruel circumstances” into which they were born.
At the suggestion of a group of prominent Republicans, Alphonso allowed his name to be put forward as a candidate for governor of Ohio. Though he lost at the convention to his friend Rutherford Hayes, in large part because of widespread opposition to his position on school prayer, his unblemished reputation for being “as honest as the day is long” caught the attention of President Ulysses S. Grant, who brought him into his cabinet. He served first as secretary of war and then as attorney general during Grant’s final months in office, where he was seen as a representative of the “reform element” against the “old regime.” While he enjoyed his short stint in Washington, he was happy to return to his beloved Cincinnati and resume the practice of law.
Alphonso and Louise supported and expected excellence in their children, pushing them at every level to succeed in their studies. Charley attended Yale and went on to Columbia Law School. Peter followed his brother to Yale, graduating first in his class with the best record ever achieved to that time. The pressure upon Will, his parents’ favorite child, to match the sterling records of his older half brothers created anxiety. From his grammar school days, he had to work harder than his fellow students to succeed. His tendency to procrastinate when anxious about assignments further intensified his nervousness. In the afternoons he was frequently seen reading under a tree on the grassy lawn in the front of his house. He was ridiculed by passing neighborhood boys for not playing ball, mocked because he was a “fatty,” a “lubber” who could not keep up in their rough-and-tumble games. “If you can’t walk,” they taunted, “we’ll roll you, old butter ball.” Refusing to be provoked, he merely smiled and returned to his book.
The desire to please his parents became central to young Taft’s temperament and development. At the age of seven he was reading, but his mother had to work with him in “arithmetic and writing.” “He means to be a scholar and studies well,” Alphonso proudly recorded. “I have never had any little boy show a better spirit in that respect.” When he fell to fifth in his class, Alphonso tersely declared: “Mediocrity will not do for Will.” By the age of twelve, his last year in grammar school, he ranked first in his class, earning both his school’s highest medal and his father’s praise. “His average was 95,” Alphonso told Delia, “and the nearest to him averaged 85. This was doing uncommonly well, and makes us all very happy.” His younger brothers were conscientious students as well, placing second and third in their respective classes. “We felt that the sun shone brighter if we brought home good reports,” Horace recalled. Yet each successful performance only fueled higher expectations, giving Will, who drove himself intensely to perform, little peace. Years later, his mother realized the mechanism they had unwittingly fostered: “Love of approval,” she acknowledged, became her adored son’s “besetting fault.”
In the summer of 1869, when Will was eleven, Alphonso and Louise sailed to Europe to join their older sons, Charley and Peter, who were studying and traveling abroad with the aid of $50,000 bequeathed to each upon the death of their maternal grandfather, Judge Phelps. For Charley, Europe proved life-altering, awakening a love of music, art, and theatre that would continue to deepen in the years ahead. Of all the Taft boys, Charley seemed best able to balance study and relaxation. For Peter, the most brilliant yet brittle of the brothers, the desire to meet his father’s expectations produced a chronic state of nervous exhaustion, marked by headaches and eye trouble. His family hoped that the year in Europe would restore his spirits.
Will and his younger siblings remained behind during this European sojourn, missing excursions to historical sites in England, Italy, and Germany that would likely have provided far more vivid and spacious lessons than the daily round of class work in their local grammar school. In their letters from abroad, the parents suggested readings that would connect their sons to their various stops along the way. When they reached Liverpool, Louise advised Will to “read up in the Gazetteer and Encyclopedia of this the greatest harbor in the world,” trusting that the knowledge his parents were there would “make his geography real & impressive to him.” Writing from Rome, where he had visited the supposed site of Julius Caesar’s assassination at the base of Pompey’s colossal statue, Alphonso re-created for Will the story of Caesar’s rivalry with Pompey and the struggle with the senators that led to his death.
In the
fall of 1870, Will entered rigorous Woodward High, a public school for college-bound students in downtown Cincinnati. His years there were marked by the same pattern of hard work, procrastination, and an anxiety driven by his need to maintain the family standard of excellence. In his study of Taft’s early education, the historian David Burton concludes that Will left high school with “a mastery of fact and a commitment to disciplined study, rather than a sense of an intellectual adventure.” Horace Taft, who eventually became a celebrated educator, recalled the learning environment of their childhood home and concluded that “the most conspicuous thing about it was its limitations. My father was very ambitious for all of his children but, like most Americans of that day, thought of education as a school affair and as connected almost exclusively with the school curriculum. . . . We had no music, no art, no mechanical training, and our reading was done with very little guidance.” So long as his children worked hard and performed well, Alphonso believed his obligation regarding their education had been met.
The winter of Will’s senior year, his brother Charley, who was then practicing law in Cincinnati, married Annie Sinton, the only daughter of the city’s wealthiest man, iron king David Sinton. Charley’s wedding to Annie Sinton was “the great social event” of the year. Long afterward, Nellie Herron Taft, who was twelve at the time, recalled the excitement of the gala staged at the splendid Sinton mansion situated at the top of her street. A long and happy marriage commenced when the young couple moved into that mansion with Annie’s widowed father. Charley would eventually leave the law to become publisher of the Cincinnati Times, which merged into the Evening Star to form the Times-Star, a Taft family holding for the next seven decades. Over the years, Charley accrued considerable wealth that would help provide a foundation for Will’s public service career.
Even as a high school student, Will began to develop a progressive sensitivity informed by the feminist teachings of his mother and grandmother. His inclinations for social justice were reflected in a thoughtful essay he wrote during his senior year. “The result of coeducation of the sexes shows clearly that there is no mental inferiority on the part of the girls,” he asserted. These views echoed the liberal views of his mother, who was incensed by an article in the New York Times suggesting that “from their constitutional peculiarities girls cannot be pushed in school as rapidly as can boys.” Moving beyond coeducation, Will argued for woman’s suffrage. “Give the woman the ballot, and you will make her more important in the eyes of the world.” The right to vote, he optimistically predicted, would beget other benefits. “Every woman would then be given an opportunity to earn a livelihood. She would suffer no decrease in compensation for her labor, on account of her sex. . . . It becomes this country, as a representative of liberty, to lead in this great reform.”
Will graduated second in his high school class, with an average of 91, earning him an acceptance at Yale. Still, his father expressed concern about his work habits, citing a teacher who believed the only obstacle to Will’s achieving great success was laziness. Despite the affection his parents showered on young Will, the impression remains that he never experienced their love as a steady force, but rather as a conditional reward dependent upon his achievements.
When he entered Yale, Will stood over six feet tall and weighed 225 pounds, quickly earning him the admiring nickname “Big Bill.” His affable disposition and genial companionship with students of all backgrounds combined to make him the most popular man in the freshman class. “To see his large bulk come solidly and fearlessly across the campus,” one classmate enthused, “is to take a fresh hold on life.” Observing him walk through the college auditorium was “like seeing a dreadnaught launched.” When the sophomore class challenged the freshmen to a tug-of-war, the freshman team proved seriously outmatched, its members “dragged bodily down the field” until Big Bill entered the fray, anchored the rope, and hauled his classmates back, inch by inch, to victory.
Academics came less easily for Will; he found his courses in Latin, Greek, and mathematics especially difficult. “I begin to see how a fellow can study all the time and still not have perfect [marks],” he warned his father only days after the semester had begun. Nevertheless, when grades were posted after six weeks, his tireless efforts placed him in the first division, where he was joined by his good friend from Cincinnati, Howard Hollister. “It is not more than we expected,” Louise told Delia. “Now that the best scholars are in one division, the motive for effort, incited by constant comparison with each other is very strong, inspiring them with unflagging ambition.” The added pressure only aggravated Will’s distress. There was no respite so long as self-esteem depended on the approval of his parents. “Another week of this ‘dem’d horrid grind,’ has passed by . . . I am somewhat embarrassed in this first division,” Taft confessed to his father. “You expect great things of me but you mustn’t be disappointed if I don’t come up to your expectations.” Despite the worry of such expectations, the fact that Will was able to speak openly to his father about his fears indicates the depth of their relationship.
He did not try out for football, baseball, or crew. His father “had other ideas,” Taft recalled years later, insisting he focus solely on his class work. Nor was Alphonso pleased to hear that his social son had been elected president of Delta Kappa and taken into Skull and Bones. “I doubt that such popularity is consistent with high scholarship,” he warned. Will disagreed: “If a man has to be isolated from his class in order to take a high stand I dont want a high stand. The presidency of Delta Kap takes none of my time except so much as I spend on Saturday night which I sh’d use any how. There’s got to be some relaxation.” This brief spark of rebellion was quickly doused as Will settled into a structured regimen that produced the expected academic distinction. Rising at half past six, he studied before breakfast, followed by prayers, morning recitation, lunch, and afternoon recitation until three o’ clock. Then he went to the gym for half an hour and studied until his last recitation at five. If he had time before dinner he would stop by the post office in hopes of finding letters from home, and then work until ten or even eleven at night.
“As a scholar, he stood high,” a fellow classmate, Herbert Bowen, recalled; more important, “he towered above us all as a moral force.” He was the class leader, directing all manner of college activities, from the literary board to the junior prom. He listened sympathetically to the troubles of his fellow students, who regularly sought his counsel. His classmates found him “safe and comforting,” always ready to “come up with a cheery bit of wholesome discourse.” Without a single dissenting vote, Taft’s colleagues affectionately appointed him “father” of their graduating year and long remembered his perpetual smile and rumbling, hearty laugh. In sum, Bowen writes, he “was the most admired and respected man not only in my class, but in all Yale.”
Nonetheless, David Burton concludes, “there was little in his academic training at Yale to suggest that learning was exciting for him, a galvanizing experience.” Rather, Will was conditioned to regard his subjects “as hurdles to be taken on the way to a degree.” When a younger student inquired about setting himself “a course of outside reading” to facilitate a deeper immersion in French and German literature and culture, Will Taft advised: “Don’t do it. Get over it. You mustn’t try to be too independent, just yet. These University professors have laid out a course, and it’s the result of their long experience, while you—well, this is just your first trial at educating anybody. . . . You’d just better stick to the course.”
In the spring of his sophomore year, Will delivered an oration on the continued vitality of the Democratic Party, tracing its history from Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson to the present day. Despite his own strong Republican leanings, he could appreciate and praise various Democratic leaders, noting in particular Jackson’s “hard common sense which is only acquired by knocking about among the masses.” Even at this young age, his biographer observes, “Taft was judicial beyond the c
omprehensions of a Theodore Roosevelt,” who not long thereafter would write a paper at Harvard accusing Jefferson of “criminal folly” and labeling Jackson “a spoilsman before anything else.”
Taft would recall one professor above all, the political economist William Graham Sumner, who, he said, “had more to do with stimulating my mental activities than any one under whom I studied during my entire course.” Considered one of the most gifted educators of his generation, Sumner lectured to classes packed not only with eager students but with professors from various universities “seeking the secret of his success.” An impassioned advocate of laissez-faire and social Darwinism, of property rights and economic freedom, Sumner was an apostle for the gospel of wealth, the reigning philosophy of the Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age that followed the Civil War.
Sumner passionately rejected concerns about the consolidation of business and the excessive concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, arguing on the contrary that wealthy business leaders like John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, and Cornelius Vanderbilt should be lionized. Through their enterprise, ingenuity, and capital, America had become the world’s leading industrial power, capable of building more railroads, producing more oil and steel, manufacturing more clothing, appliances, and consumer goods than any other nation on earth. “If we should set a limit to the accumulation of wealth,” he argued, “we should say to our most valuable producers, ‘We do not want you to do us the services which you best understand how to perform, beyond a certain point.’ It would be like killing off our generals in war.”