Republican · 1909–1913
William Howard Taft
More antitrust lawsuits than speeches. Dollar diplomacy and a cooler progressivism.
William Howard Taft was president 1909–1913. The party color on the chart is Republican. Early presidents are not forced into today’s party names. The placement note is: More antitrust lawsuits than speeches. Dollar diplomacy and a cooler progressivism.
The dot is economics +14 and authority +20. That is near the middle on economics. The other axis sits toward authority. Color and place are allowed to disagree. Theodore Roosevelt sits left of Grover Cleveland on economics.
What was said, and what the administration did, are filed separately. Said: Continue Roosevelt, with more law and less noise. Done: More antitrust suits than Roosevelt. The party split anyway. Where those two sentences pull apart, the dot follows the governing record, not the slogan.
The nearest other presidents on these two numbers are Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865, +10 / +20) and George Washington (1789–1797, +16 / +24). A small distance can join people who would have disliked each other. The chart is a compression, not a claim that they were alike.
Presidents are not placed with the Voteview roll-call score used for the current Congress. Two axes cannot carry a war, a court, a tariff, and a civil-rights record as separate facts.