Presidency of William Howard Taft
| The Taft Cabinet | ||
|---|---|---|
| Office | Name | Term |
| President | William Howard Taft | 1909–1913 |
| Vice President | James S. Sherman | 1909–1912 |
| none | 1912–1913 | |
| Secretary of State | Philander C. Knox | 1909–1913 |
| Secretary of Treasury | Franklin MacVeagh | 1909–1913 |
| Secretary of War | Jacob M. Dickinson | 1909–1911 |
| Henry L. Stimson | 1911–1913 | |
| Attorney General | George W. Wickersham | 1909–1913 |
| Postmaster General | Frank H. Hitchcock | 1909–1913 |
| Secretary of the Navy | George von L. Meyer | 1909–1913 |
| Secretary of the Interior | Richard A. Ballinger | 1909–1911 |
| Walter L. Fisher | 1911–1913 | |
| Secretary of Agriculture | James Wilson | 1909–1913 |
| Secretary of Commerce & Labor | Charles Nagel | 1909–1913 |
The presidency of William Howard Taft began on March 4, 1909, at noon Eastern Standard Time, when William Howard Taft was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1913. Taft, a Republican, was the 27th United States president. The protégé and chosen successor of incumbent President Theodore Roosevelt, he took office after easily defeating Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the 1908 presidential election.
As president, he focused on East Asia more than European affairs, and repeatedly intervened to prop up or remove Latin American governments. Taft sought reductions to trade tariffs, then a major source of governmental income, but the resulting bill was heavily influenced by special interests. His administration was filled with conflict between the conservative wing of the Republican Party, with which Taft often sympathized, and the progressive wing, toward which Roosevelt moved more and more. Controversies over conservation and over antitrust cases filed by the Taft administration served to further separate the two men. Roosevelt challenged Taft for renomination in 1912, but Taft was able to use use his control of the party machinery to gain a bare majority of delegates and win. After his loss, Roosevelt bolted the party, formed the Progressive Party, and ran for president in the 1912 election under its banner. This split among Republicans all but doomed Taft's chances for re-election, giving Democrats, in the person of Woodrow Wilson, control of the White House for the first time in sixteen years.
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