Lurie catalogued progressive innovations that took place under Taft, and argued that historians have overlooked them because Taft was not an effective political writer or speaker. According to Gould, "the clichés about Taft's weight, his maladroitness in the White House, and his conservatism of thought and doctrine have an element of truth, but they fail to do justice to a shrewd commentator on the political scene, a man of consummate ambition, and a resourceful practitioner of the internal politics of his party." Anderson deemed Taft's success in becoming both president and chief justice "an astounding feat of inside judicial and Republican party politics, played out over years, the likes of which we are not likely to see again in American history". Taft has been rated among the greatest of the chief justices; later Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia noted that this was "not so much on the basis of his opinions, perhaps because many of them ran counter to the ultimate sweep of history". A successor as chief justice, Earl Warren, concurred: "In Taft's case, the symbol, the tag, the label usually attached to him is 'conservative.' It is certainly not of itself a term of opprobrium even when bandied by the critics, but its use is too often confused with 'reactionary.'" Most commentators agree that Taft's most significant contribution as chief justice was his advocacy for reform of the high court, urging and ultimately gaining improvement in the Court's procedures and facilities. Mason cited enactment of the Judges' Bill of 1925 as Taft's major achievement on the Court. According to Anderson, as chief justice, Taft "was as aggressive in the pursuit of his agenda in the judicial realm as Theodore Roosevelt was in the presidential". The house in Cincinnati in which Taft was born and lived as a boy is now the William Howard Taft National Historic Site. Taft was named one of the first Gold Medal Honorees of the National Institute of Social Sciences. His son Robert was a significant political figure, becoming Senate Majority Leader and three times a major contender for the Republican nomination for president. A conservative, each time he was defeated by a candidate backed by the more liberal Eastern Establishment wing of the party. Lurie concluded his account of William Taft's career: Media See also Bibliography of William Howard Taft Taft on U.S. postage stamps Notes References Sources and further reading Anderson, Judith