Harding names Taft Chief Justice; a former president will now lead the Supreme Court
Chief Justice Edward Douglass White died in May 1921, and President Warren G. Harding moved quickly to fill the vacancy. He turned to William Howard Taft — the 27th President of the United States, a man who had once said he would not run for the presidency again if the office were guaranteed to him. Taft, who had long preferred the bench to the White House, accepted. No person before or since has held both the nation's highest executive office and its highest judicial one…
