Taft, Robert A. (1889–1953)

Robert Alfonso Taft was a U.S. Senator and a prominent conservative. Taft was called “Mr. Republican” during his terms in the Senate, where he represented Ohio from 1939 until his death 14 years later. The grandson of an attorney general and the son of a president of the United States, Robert Taft was an assistant to Herbert Hoover during the First World War. At that time, Hoover was the director of the American Food Administration, which oversaw the supply and conservation of food for the duration of the war. Taft accompanied Hoover to Paris to attend the Versailles Conference, and, along with Hoover, he left the Wilson delegation on the grounds that the conference's policies were creating the conditions for another European war.

Serving in the ...