Changes
/* Private life */
==Private life==
Taft was the scion of a powerful Republican family based in Cincinnati , Ohio. His father was elected president in 1908, and in 1921 became [[Chief Justice of the United StatesSupreme Court]]. Taft's sister Helen Taft Manning was a professor, and his brother Charles Taft was a leading reformer in Cincinnati. As a boy he spent three years in the [[Philippines]], where his father was governor.
Known throughout his life for his brilliant grasp of complexity, he was first in his class at the Taft School (run by his uncle), at [[Yale College]] (1910) and at [[Harvard Law School]] (1913), where he edited the ''Harvard Law Review''. He practiced law with the firm of Maxwell and Ramsey in [[Cincinnati, Ohio]]. On Oct. 17, 1914, he married Martha Wheaton Bowers, the daughter of Lloyd Bowers, who had served as his father's solicitor general.
Taft confessed in 1922 that "while I have no difficulty talking, I don't know how to do any of the eloquence business which makes for enthusiasm or applause".<ref>Taft ''Papers'' 1:271</ref> Taft himself appeared taciturn and coldly intellectual, characteristics that were offset by his gregarious wife, who served the same role his mother had for his father, as a confident and powerful asset to her husband's political career. They had four sons. Robert Alphonso Taft, Jr., served as a senator from Ohio. Horace Dwight Taft, became a professor of physics and dean at Yale. William Howard III served as ambassador to [[Ireland]].
==Public offices==
