Robert Taft
Overview
Robert Alphonso Taft of the Taft political family
Taft family
The Taft family of the United States hails from Cincinnati, Ohio, with historic origins in Massachusetts; its members have served Ohio, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Utah, and the United States in various positions, such as Governor of Ohio, Governor of Rhode Island, U.S. Senator , U.S...

 of Cincinnati, was a Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 United States Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 and a prominent conservative statesman. As the leading opponent of the New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...

 in the Senate from 1939 to 1953, he led the successful effort by the conservative coalition
Conservative coalition
In the United States, the conservative coalition was an unofficial Congressional coalition bringing together the conservative majority of the Republican Party and the conservative, mostly Southern, wing of the Democratic Party...

 to curb the power of labor unions
Labor unions in the United States
Labor unions in the United States are legally recognized as representatives of workers in many industries. The most prominent unions are among public sector employees such as teachers and police...

, and was a major proponent of the foreign policy of non-interventionism
Non-interventionism
Nonintervention or non-interventionism is a foreign policy which holds that political rulers should avoid alliances with other nations, but still retain diplomacy, and avoid all wars not related to direct self-defense...

. However, he failed in his quest to win the presidential nomination of the Republican Party in 1940, 1948 and 1952.
Quotations

About this whole judgment there is the spirit of vengeance, and vengeance is seldom justice. The hanging of the eleven men convicted will be a blot on the American record which we shall long regret

Profiles in Courage, Kennedy, p.191.

 
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