William Howard Taft Trivia
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50 free William Howard Taft trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
William Howard Taft never really wanted to be president. He wanted to be chief justice, turned down the Supreme Court three times because the work in front of him seemed more important, and finally got the centre seat from Warren Harding in 1921 — making him the only person to have led both the executive and judicial branches. In between he governed the Philippines, ran the War Department and the Panama Canal, won the White House as Theodore Roosevelt's hand-picked heir, and then lost it in a three-way race after Roosevelt bolted the party. These 50 questions cover the whole career: Cincinnati, Yale wrestling and Skull and Bones, the confession-of-error policy he invented as solicitor general, the Payne-Aldrich tariff, Dollar Diplomacy, the Ballinger-Pinchot affair, the 70 antitrust suits, Nellie's cherry trees, the eight electoral votes of 1912, the Judges' Bill, the Supreme Court building he fought for but never saw, and a burial at Arlington that was a first for any president. Easy questions stick to the two jobs and the famous size; the expert tier asks about court cases, cabinet secretaries and the doctor who ran his diet for twenty years. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Pauline Wayne, who lived at the White House during Taft's presidency, was what kind of animal?
A cow
A cow: Pauline Wayne, a gift from a Wisconsin senator, grazed the White House lawn and kept the Tafts in fresh milk; when the presidency ended she was shipped back to Wisconsin.
Q 02In which city was Taft born in 1857?
Cincinnati
Cincinnati is also where Taft learned the law, studying at its law school while covering the local courts as a reporter for the Cincinnati Commercial.
Q 03Taft's father Alphonso held which two cabinet posts under Ulysses S. Grant?
Secretary of War and Attorney General
Secretary of War and Attorney General came less than three months apart: Grant named Alphonso Taft to the War Department in March 1876, then moved him to head the Justice Department that May.
Q 04Archibald Butt, the trusted military aide to both Roosevelt and Taft, died in which disaster?
The sinking of the Titanic
The sinking of the Titanic killed Major Butt on his way home from a rest in Europe, taken because he felt torn between Taft and Roosevelt as their feud grew.
Q 05Which secret society, co-founded by his father Alphonso, did Taft join in college?
Skull and Bones
Skull and Bones picks just fifteen students a year and meets in a hall known as the Tomb; when its members voted to admit women, a group of alumni went to court to try to stop them.
Q 06Which sport did candidate Taft retreat to at a Virginia resort in the summer of 1908?
Golf
Golf drew Taft to Hot Springs, Virginia, that summer, and once he was president his frequent rounds brought complaints that he belonged at his desk.
Q 07Which president appointed Taft solicitor general in 1890?
Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison had been lobbied to put the young Ohioan on the Supreme Court itself; he made Taft the government's advocate before the Court instead.
Q 08Which post did Taft hold from 1892 to 1900?
Federal appeals judge
Federal appeals judge on the Sixth Circuit, which covered Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee: Taft was content there and saw the seat as a stepping stone to the Supreme Court.
Q 09Which president sent Taft to the Philippines in 1900 to set up a civilian government?
William McKinley
William McKinley summoned Taft to Washington in January 1900; Taft hoped the call meant a Supreme Court seat and only reluctantly agreed to lead the Philippine commission instead.
Q 10Which general, military governor of the Philippines, clashed with Taft's civilian commission in 1900?
Arthur MacArthur Jr.
Arthur MacArthur Jr., father of Douglas MacArthur, resented sharing power with civilians; once Taft became civil governor in 1901, the general was replaced.
Q 11Which department did Taft head in Roosevelt's cabinet from 1904?
War
War was the department that ran the Philippines, so Taft could keep overseeing the islands he had governed; Roosevelt also gave it charge of building the Panama Canal.
Q 12In 1905 talks with Japan's prime minister, Taft accepted Japanese control of which country?
Korea
Korea came up alongside the Philippines: Prime Minister Katsura Tarō assured Taft that Japan had no designs on the American colony, and their memorandum stayed out of public view until 1924.
Q 13Where did Taft travel in September 1906 to impose a US provisional government?
Cuba
Cuba's president had asked for American intervention as a disputed election turned to revolt; Taft named himself provisional governor and held the post for two weeks.
Q 21Which constitutional amendment, permitting an income tax, was sent to the states during Taft's term?
The Sixteenth
The Sixteenth Amendment was Taft's own suggestion: sure the Supreme Court would strike down an income tax law as it had in 1895, he urged Congress to amend the Constitution instead.
Q 22Which country's voters sank the free-trade reciprocity deal Taft pushed through Congress in 1911?
Canada
Canada turned against the deal after House Speaker Champ Clark said he hoped to see the American flag fly over British North America all the way to the North Pole; voters ousted the government that had made it.
Q 23Why did Taft veto Arizona's statehood bill in 1911?
Q 14Which Democrat did Taft defeat in the 1908 presidential election?
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan lost his third and last presidential race, 321 electoral votes to 162; he later became secretary of state under Woodrow Wilson, the man who unseated Taft.
Q 15What did humorists say the letters TAFT stood for during the 1908 campaign?
Take advice from Theodore
Take advice from Theodore mocked a candidate who disliked campaigning and leaned on Roosevelt for speeches, advice and energy; that backing was still enough to win.
Q 16Nellie Taft vowed to become first lady after a teenage stay in the White House with which president?
Rutherford B. Hayes
Rutherford B. Hayes, once her father's law partner, hosted the teenage Nellie Herron at the White House; she later pushed her husband toward the presidency when he would rather have been a judge.
Q 17Why was Taft inaugurated inside the Senate Chamber in March 1909?
A winter storm coated Washington in ice
A winter storm coated Washington in ice and ten inches of snow, toppling trees and telephone poles; it took 6,000 men and 500 wagons to clear the parade route.
Q 18Who was Taft's secretary of state?
Philander Knox
Philander Knox, a former attorney general and senator, reorganised the State Department into regional divisions and extended merit promotion to its diplomats.
Q 19Which name is given to Taft's foreign policy toward Latin America and East Asia?
Dollar Diplomacy
Dollar Diplomacy meant backing American loans and investment abroad, 'substituting dollars for bullets' in Taft's phrase, though it stirred resentment across Latin America.
Q 20Which 1909 tariff act, signed by Taft, failed to deliver the cuts that reformers expected?
Payne–Aldrich
Payne–Aldrich began as a House bill of modest cuts, then Senator Nelson Aldrich's amendments pushed many rates back up; Taft signed it and called it the best tariff bill his party had ever passed.
Its constitution allowed the recall of judges
Its constitution allowed the recall of judges, which Taft, a former judge, would not accept; Arizona struck the clause, won statehood, then voted four to one to put it back.
Q 24Which state became the 47th in the union under Taft in January 1912?
New Mexico
New Mexico had been a US territory since 1850; its admission shared one resolution with Arizona's, so Taft's 1911 veto held up both until Congress passed a revised bill.
Q 25Taft's many antitrust suits were brought under which 1890 law?
Sherman Antitrust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act had made Roosevelt famous as the trust-buster, yet Taft brought about twice as many cases and refused to spare the trusts Roosevelt considered good ones.
Q 26Taft's 1911 antitrust suit against which company implied that Roosevelt had been deceived by its bosses?
U.S. Steel
U.S. Steel had absorbed a Tennessee coal and iron firm during the Panic of 1907 with Roosevelt's consent; offended by the suit's references to him, he broke with Taft and within months was running against him.
Q 27Which conservation row led Taft to fire the nation's chief forester?
The Ballinger–Pinchot affair
The Ballinger–Pinchot affair saw forester Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt's close friend, sacked for attacking Interior Secretary Richard Ballinger over Alaskan coal lands; the firing drove a wedge between Taft and Roosevelt.
Q 28Besides Washington, who named more justices than Taft?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt made nine appointments in twelve years; Taft, who longed to sit on the Court himself, filled six of its nine seats in a single term.
Q 29Which sitting justice did Taft elevate to chief justice in 1910, a first for the Court?
Edward Douglass White
Edward Douglass White was a Louisiana Democrat promoted by a Republican president; when he died in 1921, the man who had appointed him took over his chair.
Q 30Which New York governor did Taft put on the Supreme Court in 1910?
Charles Evans Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes quit the Court in 1916 to run for president, lost narrowly to Woodrow Wilson, and came back in 1930 as chief justice, succeeding Taft.