Occasional Papers and Addresses of an American Lawyer
(
This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
(Originally published in 1921. This volume from the Cornel...)
Originally published in 1921. This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies. All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume.
Henry Waters Taft was an American lawyer and author.
Background
He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the second son and second of four surviving children of Alphonso Taft, lawyer, judge, and member of President Grant's cabinet, by his second wife, Louisa Maria Torrey of Millbury, Massachussets Henry's older brother was William Howard Taft. He had one younger brother, Horace Dutton Taft, who founded the Taft School for boys in Watertown, Connecticut, and a younger sister. Charles Phelps Taft was one of his two older half brothers. Taft was reared in a warm and closely knit family which nevertheless provided a highly competitive environment in which intellectual skills received heavy stress.
Education
He attended Cincinnati public schools and, like his father and brothers, went on to Yale. There he followed family tradition by combining academic achievement with vigorous participation in sports and other undergraduate activities. After receiving his B. A. in 1880, he returned home and taught high school for a year while taking classes at the Cincinnati Law School. Then he read law in the New York firm of Chamberlain, Carter & Hornblower while studying law at Columbia (1881 - 82).
Career
He was admitted to the New York bar in 1882 and entered the law office of Thomas Thacher. The young Ohioan at first had doubts of his ability to succeed in the law, in part at least shared by his family, who considered him moody and nervous. He enjoyed New York, however, and ultimately was to have a most successful career there.
After practicing alone and with a partner, Taft in 1899 received a partnership in the firm of Strong & Cadwalader. He remained in the firm, which in 1914 became Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, for the rest of his life. Taft developed a widely diversified law practice involving frequent appearances in both regular and appellate courts. Although best known to the public as counsel for the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, he handled such matters as contested wills, railroad reorganizations, and antitrust cases. As special assistant to the federal Attorney General, 1905-07, he helped prosecute the tobacco and licorice trusts; he later defended corporate clients in several other antitrust actions. Respected in his profession, Taft served as president of the New York state (1919-20), county (1930 - 32), and city (1923 - 25) bar associations.
Taft early took an interest in civic affairs. He was one of the leaders in a hard-fought battle for educational reform which in 1896 secured legislation creating a central board of education for New York City in place of the previous system of ward trustees. That fall Mayor William L. Strong appointed him to the new board. During his four years of service Taft played an important part in establishing the city's high school system and Manhattan's first free training school for teachers, and he served on several subsequent committees dealing with school matters. In 1921 he headed the Coalition Campaign Committee that unsuccessfully opposed the reelection of Mayor John F. Hylan.
Other persistent interests were the Salvation Army, of whose advisory board for New York City he was chairman, 1920-40, and the League for Political Education (later Town Hall, Inc. ), of which he was president, 1919-35. He was a trustee of the New York Public Library, 1908-19, and president of the University Settlement Society, 1917-20. Early in his career Taft showed some interest in public office. In 1882 he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for a seat in the state assembly. The Republicans nominated him for a justiceship on the state supreme court in 1898, but he was defeated. When, however, Gov. Theodore Roosevelt offered him an appointment to a vacancy on the same court in 1900 (the year after he joined Strong & Cadwalader), Taft refused, and thereafter he declined all such offers, including an opportunity for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 1904. He was active, however, in the efforts to advance his brother William to the presidency, beginning as early as 1903. Always a loyal Republican, he served as a delegate to the party's national conventions of 1920 and 1924.
Widely traveled and well read in foreign affairs, Taft firmly supported the League of Nations and the World Court. In the 1920's he was unsympathetic to the Soviet experiment but treated Fascist Italy more gently. Between the wars he worked diligently for improved United States-Japanese relations and served as president of the Japan Society of New York (1923-28, 1934 - 41).
He died at the age of eighty-six in St. Luke's Hospital, New York City, as a result of a hip injury suffered in a fall and was buried beside his wife in Gate of Heaven Cemetery, Hawthorne, N. Y.
He was a member of the Century Association, City Midday Club of New York, Down Town Association, New England Society, Ohio Society, Park Avenue Association, Pilgrims of the United States, Psi Upsilon, Skull and Bones and the Sons of the American Revolution.
Connections
On March 28, 1883, in Troy, N. Y. , Taft had married Julia Walbridge Smith. They had four children: Walbridge Smith, Marion Jennings (who died in infancy), William Howard, and Louise Witherbee. Although his wife, who died in 1942, became a Catholic convert, Taft remained a Unitarian.