182 WILLIAM H. TAFT The only man in United States history to hold its two highest offices was William Howard Taft. He was both the 27th president and later, from 1921 to 1930, the chief justice of the US Supreme Court. Owing to Taft's long years of experience, he was the man best fitted to serve in both positions. He had been in public office almost continuously since 1881. He was the first civil governor of the Philippines and Secretary of War in President Theodore Roosevelt's Cabinet, these are only two of the many high positions he held. His large size and his famous chuckle made Taft a memorable figure. He was 5 feet 11 inches tall, with a fair complexion, clear blue eyes, and light hair. At the time he was president, he weighed 350 pounds. He joked about his bulk and took no offense at the jokes of others. Asked to accept a chair of law at Yale University, he replied that he would if they could make it a "sofa of law". Chairs were indeed a problem for him. He always "looked before he sat" to avoid armchairs or antiques in which he might get stuck or which might collapse under his bulk. When he was governor of the Philippines, Taft made a trip into the mountains for the benefit of his health. He cabled Secretary of War Elihu Root: "Stood trip well. Rode horseback 25 miles to 5,000 feet elevation." Root cabled back: "Referring to your telegram ... how is the horse?" His biographer, Henry F. Pringle, has described the Taft chuckle: "It was by all odds the most infectious chuckle in the history of politics. It started with a silent trembling of Taft's ample stomach. The next sign was a pause in the reading of his speech, and the spread of a slow grin across his face. Then came a kind of gulp which seemed to escape without his being aware that the climax was near. Laughter followed hard on the chuckle itself, and the audience invariably joined in."
