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William Howard Taft (1857–1930) was the 27th President of the United States (1909–1913) and the tenth Chief Justice of the United States (1921–1930), the only person to have held both offices. 
Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 15, 1857. After his presidency, he returned to Yale, where he was a professor of constitutional law. With the entry of the United States into World War I, he served on the National War Labor Board. At the war’s conclusion he strongly supported American participation in the League of Nations. While on the U.S. Supreme Court he helped to found ALI in 1923. He also helped pass the Judge’s Act of 1925, which gave the Supreme Court greater discretion in choosing its cases so that it could focus more attention on constitutional questions and other issues of national importance.