Buried: Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia
Twenty-seventh President - 1909-1913
Born: September 15, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio
Died: March 8, 1930, in Washington, D.C.
Age at death: 72
Cause of death: Heart disease
Final words: Unknown
Admission to Arlington National
Cemetery: Free
William Howard Taft, our twenty-seventh president, is probably best remembered for two things: he was the only president to serve as Chief Justice and, at 6’2” and 332 lbs., he was our largest president—so large that he reportedly got stuck in a White House bathtub. An outsized tub was created specially for him.
He also had the distinction of having the first presidential funeral to be broadcast to the nation via radio.
Taft was not a particularly happy president. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt challenged his former protégé for the Republican nomination. When that effort failed, Roosevelt waged a third-party challenge on the Bull Moose ticket, splitting the Republican vote. Defeated by Democrat Woodrow Wilson, Taft retired from the White House to a career in law.
In 1921, President Harding appointed him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
William Howard Taft’s granite monument
Taft spent nine vigorous years on the court, stepping down in February 1930 when the strain of his excess weight began to seriously affect his health. Diagnosed with heart disease and high blood pressure, Taft failed quickly. By March, he was drifting in and out of consciousness. With his wife Nellie at his side, he died in his sleep at their home on March 8. Taft was seventy-two.
President Hoover paid a condolence call to Taft’s widow at the couple’s home on Wyoming Avenue in Washington, D.C., and issued a proclamation honoring him. For burial, Nellie dressed her husband in his black judicial robe. A military procession escorted the body from the Taft home, past the White House and to the Capitol. Taft’s body lay in state while thousands of mourners waited in torrential downpours to pay their respects.
A memorial service for the ex-president was held at All Soul’s Unitarian Church on Sixteenth Street in Washington; a six-horse caisson carried the body to the church while an army band played Chopin’s funeral march. President and Mrs. Hoover were among the guests for the simple service with no eulogy. A string quartet and an organist played hymns and the Reverend Ulysses Grant Pierce read some of Taft’s favorite poems, including Wordsworth’s “Character of the Happy Warrior.” A radio microphone hidden among the flowers broadcast the tribute to listeners across the country.
Taft’s funeral procession was as outsized as he. A hearse carried Taft’s flag-draped coffin to Arlington National Cemetery escorted by 120 cars. A large truck carried hundreds of flower arrangements. A thousand soldiers presented arms before a bugler sounded taps. A minister read the 23rd Psalm. Taft was laid to rest among white oak and chestnut trees, one of only two presidents (John Kennedy is the other) buried at Arlington. Nellie, the first lady responsible for Washington’s famed cherry trees, was buried alongside him when she died in 1943.
Touring William Howard Taft’s Tomb at Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery is open daily, 365 days a year. Hours are from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. from April through September and 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. from October through March. Admission to the cemetery is free.
Arlington National Cemetery is located across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., at the north end of the Memorial Bridge. The bridge is accessible from Constitution Avenue or Twenty-third Street N.W. near the Lincoln Memorial. The cemetery can also be reached by Metrorail, at the Arlington Cemetery stop on the blue line.
Cars are not allowed on the cemetery grounds except by special permission. There is ample paid parking available near the Visitors Center. Motorized tours of the cemetery are available for a fee through Tourmobile; however, the Taft gravesite is not one of the tour’s scheduled stops.
Maps of the cemetery are available at the Visitors Center. To reach Taft’s grave from the cemetery’s main entrance (Memorial Drive), go right onto Schley Drive. Brown signs lead the way to the Taft gravesite.
For additional information
Superintendent
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington, VA 22211
Visitor Center Phone:
(703) 607-8000
www.arlingtoncemetery.org
The Taft gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery
“Taft made up in principle what he lacked in political dexterity. ”
—Richard Norton Smith
William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy might seem, at first glance, a presidential odd couple. In truth, they share more than a common resting place. Long before he became the first American president to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Taft was the victim of religious bias. During the 1908 campaign, a Presbyterian minister in his native Cincinnati urged his flock to vote for Taft’s opponent, William Jennings Bryan. The man of the cloth accused Taft of being overly friendly to Roman Catholics, with whom he had negotiated a landmark sale of church properties as governor general of the Philippines.
A more serious controversy involved Taft’s less than orthodox beliefs. “I am a Unitarian,” he wrote forthrightly. “I believe in God. I do not believe in the Divinity of Christ.” Under the circumstances, Taft had felt it necessary to withdraw his name from consideration for the Yale presidency. The White House was a different story.
A maladroit politician, Taft made things worse by playing golf on Sundays. Theodore Roosevelt advised him to be more discreet. Moreover, said TR, golf was viewed in many quarters as an elite pastime. Taft was confused. His friend the president played tennis—if anything a more rarified game. True enough, replied Roosevelt. But there was a difference: he didn’t allow photographers to take his picture.
Taft made up in principle what he lacked in political dexterity. “Of course, I’m interested in the spread of Christian civilization,” he wrote to one concerned voter in August 1908, “but to go into a dogmatic discussion of creed I will not do whether I am defeated or not…if the American electorate is so narrow as not to want a Unitarian, well and good. I can stand it.”
—RNS