Robert A. Taft – 1889-1953

Son of President William Howard Taft, Robert A. Taft was a Republican leader in the U.S. Senate from 1939 to 1953. He represented the most conservative wing of the Republican Party and was a strong advocate of isolationism and a foe of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal (which he denounced as Socialist). The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act (which he cosponsored) restricted the rights of organized labor.