The Taft Administration

The Taft Administration

Taft Becomes President

William Howard Taft had been Theodore Roosevelt’s most trusted lieutenant. He had served as a judge, a governor of the Philippines and as Roosevelt’s secretary of war. In fact, he seemed an acceptable successor to almost everyone. Thanks to Roosevelt’s efforts, Taft easily received his party’s nomination for the 1908 election. The Democratic candidate, twice-defeated William Jennings Bryan, lost once more.

Taft’s Approach to Government “My dear Theodore,” Taft wrote to his old friend a couple of weeks after assuming the office. “When I am addressed as ‘Mr. President,’ I turn to see whether you are at my elbow.” The comment was telling.

Roosevelt and Taft were very different people. Roosevelt was a dynamic person who loved the spotlight and the rough-and-tumble world of politics. He had grand ideas and schemes but left the details of administering them to others. Taft was the opposite in many ways. He was skillful administrator and judge. He disliked political maneuvering and preferred to avoid conflict with others. Unlike Roosevelt, who acted quickly and decisively on issues, Taft responded slowly, approaching problems from a legalistic point of view. “I don’t like politics,” he wrote, “I don’t like the limelight.” Although committed to many progressive ideas, Taft’s personality and approach to politics quickly brought him into conflict with progressives.

The Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act Like many progressives, Taft believed high tariffs limited competition, hurt consumers, and protected trusts. Roosevelt had warned him to stay away from tariff reform because it would divide the Republican Party. Taft, however, went ahead and called Congress into special session to lower tariff rates.

To pass a new tariff, Taft needed the help of the Speaker of the House Joseph G. Cannon. As Speaker, Cannon appointed all committees and decided which bills they handled. By exercising almost total control over debate. Cannon could push some bills through without discussion and see that others never came to vote. Progressives wanted to unseat Cannon because he often blocked their legislation.

Taft disagreed with the effort to unseat Cannon. He pressured progressive Republicans into stopping their campaign against Cannon. In exchange, Cannon quickly pushed the tariff bill through the House of Representatives. Taft’s compromise angered many progressives. The following year, they defied the president by joining with House Democrats and removing Cannon from power.

Taft further alienated progressives when the tariff bill went to the Senate. The powerful head of the Senate Finance Committee, Republican Nelson Aldrich from Rhode Island, wanted to protect high tariffs, as did many other conservative senators. The result was the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, which cut tariffs hardly at all and actually raised them one some goods. After discussions with Aldrich and other senators, however, Taft decided to accept the new tariff. Progressives felt betrayed and outraged by Taft’s decision: “I knew the fire had gone out of [the Progressive movement],” recalled chief forester Gifford Pinchot after Roosevelt left office. “Washington was a dead town. Its leader was gone and in his place [was] a man whose fundamental desire was to keep out of trouble.”

The Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy With Taft’s standing among Republican progressives deteriorating, a sensational controversy broke in 1909 helping destroy Taft’s popularity with reformers for good. Many progressives had been unhappy when Taft replaced Roosevelt’s secretary of the interior, James R. Garfield, and aggressive conservationist, with Richard A. Ballinger grew when he tried to make nearly a million acres of public forests and mineral reserves available for private development.

During this mounting concern, Gifford Pinchot charged the new secretary with having once plotted to turn over valuable public lands in Alaska to a private syndicate, or business group, for personal profit. Pinchot took the charges to the president. Taft’s attorney general found the charges were groundless.

Still not satisfied, Pinchot leaked the story to the press and asked Congress to investigate. Taft fired Pinchot for insubordination, or disobedience. The congressional committee appointed to study the controversy cleared Ballinger.

By signing the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act, supporting Ballinger against Pinchot, and backing Cannon, Taft gave the impression that he had “sold the Square Deal down the river.” Popular indignation was so great that the congressional elections of 1910 resulted in a sweeping Democratic victory, with Democrats taking the majority in the House and Democrats and Progressive Republicans grabbing control of the Senate from the conservatives.

Taft’s Progressive Reforms

Despite his political problems, Taft also had several successes. Although Roosevelt was nicknamed the “trustbuster,” Taft was a stronger supporter of competition and actually brought twice as many antitrust cases in four years as his predecessor had in seven.

In other areas, too, Taft established the Children’s Bureau, a federal agency similar to Roosevelt’s Bureau of Corporations. The Children’s Bureau investigated and publicized problems with child labor. Taft also supported the Mann-Elkins Act of 1910, which increased the regulatory powers of the ICC.

The Ballinger-Pinchot controversy aside, Taft was also a dedicated conservationist. His contributions in this area actually equaled or surpassed those of Roosevelt. Taft set up the Bureau of Mines to monitor the activities of mining companies, expanded the national forests, and protected waterpower sites from private developments.

Although disturbed by stories of Taft’s “betrayal” of progressivism, Roosevelt at first refused to criticize the president. Then in October 1911, Taft announced an antitrust lawsuit against the U.S. Steel, claiming that the company’s decision to buy the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company in 1907 had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act.

The lawsuit was the final straw for Roosevelt. As president, he had approved U.S. Steel’s plan to buy the company. Roosevelt believed Taft’s focus on breaking up trusts was destroying the carefully crafted system of cooperation and regulation that Roosevelt had established. In November 1911, Roosevelt publicly criticized Taft’s decision. Roosevelt argued that the best way to deal with the trusts was to allow them to exist while at the same time increasing government’s ability to regulate them.

Having broken with Taft, it was only a matter time before progressives convinced Roosevelt to reenter politics. In late February 1912, Roosevelt announced that he would attempt to replace Taft as the 1912 Republican nominee for President.

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