PRESIDENT WILLIAM H. TAFT - MILITARY APPOINTMENT SIGNED 12/18/1909 CO-SIGNED BY: BRIGADIER GENERAL ROBERT SHAW OLIVER - HFSID 32946

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT
Appointment of Harry Burgess as a Major in the Corps of Engineers, co-signed by Acting Secretary of War Robert Shaw Oliver. Burgess would figure prominently in World War I and in the Panama Canal Zone.
Military Appointment signed: "Wm H. Taft" as President, "Robert Shaw Oliver" as Acting Secretary of War, 18x14½. Washington, D.C., 1909 December 18. Appointment of David Burgess as a Major in the Corps of Engineers. WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT (1857-1930) was Governor of the Philippines (1901-1904), Secretary of War (1904-1909), 27th of the United States (1909-1913) and Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court (1921-1930). His bruising convention battle with former ally and patron Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 split the Republican Party, allowing the election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Taft as President was caught in the middle between progressives and conservatives and constrained by a more limited view of Presidential powers than TR had possessed, but historians tend to view his term of office more positively than did most of his contemporaries. His skills as Chief Justice are widely recognized. In the years between his Presidency and his appointment as chief justice, Taft taught at Yale Law School. ROBERT SHAW Oliver (1847-1935), a cavalry lieutenant in the Civil War, rose through the ranks of the New York state militia to become a brigade comander in 1883. He served as Assistant Secretary of War from August 19, 1903 to April 19, 1913, longer than anyone else. During the absence of the Secretary of War, he served as Acting Secretary. Oliver was the first President of the US Tennis Association (1881). HARRY BURGESS (1887-1933), a West Point graduate (1895), would command the 16th Regiment of Engineers (Railway) in France during World War I, building the infrastructure that supplied the American Expeditionary Force. After serving as a maintenance engineer on the Panama Canal, he became Governor of the Panama Canal Zone (1928-1932). Large folds. Surface creases. Notch missing on bottom left corner. Signatures lightly faded. Otherwise, fine condition.