Some presidents are remembered for wars, speeches, or scandals. William Howard Taft, the 27th president, is often remembered for something much sillier: supposedly getting wedged in the White House bathtub. It's one of the most repeated bits of presidential trivia in America.
Here's the truth. The story that Taft got stuck in a White House bathtub is not true. As writer Scott Bomboy of the National Constitution Center put it, Taft is best remembered today as the president who was so large he got stuck in the tub, a story that never happened. The legend has unfairly overshadowed a remarkable career.
Where the Teasing Came From
Taft really was big. He stood 5 feet 11 inches tall, and his weight peaked at around 335 to 340 pounds toward the end of his presidency. He's remembered as the heaviest U.S. president. Even in college he was known as heavyset and jovial, and he was popular with his classmates.
During the bitter three-way election of 1912, against Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt, campaigns took aim at Taft's weight. That mockery helped give rise to the bathtub myth. In popular memory, his size has often overshadowed his political achievements.
A Surprisingly Bathtub-Related Twist
Here's an irony the legend leaves out. Taft's administration actually went after the so-called Bathtub Trust. The Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company and dozens of other companies were charged with price-fixing on bathroom fixtures like tubs and toilets.
The lawsuit, filed at Taft's urging, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the trust was broken up. In 1913, members of the trust were found guilty of criminal conspiracy to restrain trade. So Taft's real connection to bathtubs was helping Americans avoid being overcharged for them.
A Lifelong Effort to Get Healthy
Taft took his weight seriously. He followed a weight-loss program and hired a British doctor, N. E. Yorke-Davies, as a diet adviser. The two wrote to each other regularly for more than twenty years, and Taft kept a daily record of his weight, what he ate, and how active he was.
It paid off. By 1929, he weighed 244 pounds. As chief justice, he walked 3 miles from his home to the Capitol each day. A bridge he crossed on his walks over Rock Creek in Washington was later named the Taft Bridge.
The Taft Worth Remembering
Taft is the only person ever to serve as both president and chief justice of the United States. He was a heavyweight wrestling champion at Yale, served as civilian governor of the Philippines, and was Secretary of War before winning the presidency in 1908. Earlier in his career, he turned down repeated offers of a Supreme Court seat because he believed his political work was more important.
As president, he quietly filed many more antitrust cases than Theodore Roosevelt did. One historian called him "honest, likable, but boring," which may explain why a juicy bathtub tale stuck to him instead. After the White House, he taught at Yale and worked for peace before being appointed chief justice in 1921, the job he had wanted most.
So the next time someone brings up Taft and the bathtub, you can set the record straight. He never got stuck. He was a hardworking public servant who spent decades trying to get healthier, and who, of all things, helped break up a bathtub price-fixing ring.
