William Howard Taft Character Analysis

William Howard Taft was the 27th president of the United States, serving from 1909 to 1913. He succeeded Teddy Roosevelt, who criticized Taft for his conservatism. When Taft held to his beliefs, Teddy Roosevelt formed the Bull Moose Party, creating a split in the Republican Party that allowed Democrat Woodrow Wilson to get elected instead. When reflecting on the incident, Taft said he didn’t think he could have done anything different, demonstrating Carnegie’s point that criticism doesn’t work—it only makes people defensive and stubborn in their ideas.