Taft again sought the presidential nomination a third time in 1952 , and was widely viewed as the front-runner . However , Dewey and other moderates convinced General Dwight D. Eisenhower to enter the race , and Eisenhower narrowly prevailed at the 1952 Republican National Convention and went on to win the 1952 presidential election . Taft was elected Senate Majority Leader in 1953 but died of pancreatic cancer later that year . A 1957 Senate committee named Taft as one of America 's five greatest senators , along with Henry Clay , Daniel Webster , John C. Calhoun , and Robert M. La Follette , Sr . Taft was born in Cincinnati , Ohio , a product of one of America 's most prominent political families . He was a grandson of Attorney General and Secretary of War Alphonso Taft , and the elder son of President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft and Helen Louise " Nellie " Herron . His younger brother , Charles Phelps Taft II , served as the Mayor of Cincinnati and was the unsuccessful Republican candidate for Ohio Governor in 1952 . As a boy he spent four years in the Philippines , where his father was governor . He was first in his class at the Taft School ( run by his uncle ) , at Yale College ( 1910 ) , and at Harvard Law School ( 1913 ) . He was a member of Psi Upsilon , his father 's fraternity and Skull and Bones , and edited the '' Harvard Law Review '' . In 1913 , Taft scored the highest in the state on the Ohio bar exam . He then practiced for four years with the firm of Maxwell and Ramsey ( now Graydon Head & Ritchey LLP ) in Cincinnati , his family 's ancestral city . After a two-year stint in Washington working for the Food and Drug Administration , he returned to Cincinnati and opened his own law office . In 1924 he and his brother , Charles , helped form the law partnership Taft , Stettinius , and Hollister with which he continued to be associated until his death and continues to carry his name today
1952 Republican National Convention
1952 Republican National Convention
Robert A. Taft