The
Taft Record
Although conservative by inclination, William Howard Taft achieved a significant
record of reform during his presidential term (1909-1913). First, he made
good on his 1908 campaign promise to revise the tariff. The resulting
Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of August 1909 was not as substantial as he had hoped;
it lowered the overall tariff rate by only five percent (to 41%) and actually
raised rates on crucial resources like coal and iron ore. Nevertheless, it
was the first successful attempt at tariff reform in 15 years, and included the
president’s suggestion of a tariff commission to study rates and recommend
further changes. To gain popular support for the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act
and other policies, Taft followed President Theodore Roosevelt’s example of
taking his case directly to the American people. Lacking his predecessor’s
charisma, Taft’s stumping rarely resulted in widespread approval, but instead
provoked press criticism that he was neglecting the responsibilities of office.
Although he liked to socialize and was frequently seen on the golf course, Taft
was diligent and attentive to his official duties.
The Taft administration put
Roosevelt’s conservation policies on firmer legal ground. However, in
early 1910, Taft angered the former president and other environmentalists by
firing Gifford Pinchot, chief of the U.S. Forest Service, who had accused
Interior Secretary Richard Ballinger of colluding with coal companies to plunder
federal reserves in Alaska. Ballinger was exonerated by a Congressional
investigation, but he resigned. The Taft administration also advanced a
series of antitrust lawsuits far more numerous and effective than under
Roosevelt the “trustbuster,” resulting in the breakup of Standard Oil and the
American Tobacco Company. In 1910, Taft signed the Mann-Elkins Act, which
enhanced the authority of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to set
maximum rates charged by railroads. It also prohibited higher rates for
short hauls, and placed telegraph and telephone companies under ICC regulations.
In addition, the Taft
administration oversaw the near-completion of the Panama Canal, established a
separate Department of Labor (formerly merged with the Department of Commerce),
regulated political contributions from business corporations, imposed an
eight-hour day on federal public works projects, and enhanced the Pure Food and
Drug Act. Taft appointed six Supreme Court justices and almost half of the
federal judges during his single presidential term. At the president’s
direction, Secretary of State Philander Knox pursued what critics called “Dollar
Diplomacy,” attempting to foster stability in Latin America through investments
by American banks and industry. Taft justified the doctrine as an
extension of the Monroe Doctrine. In 1912, he dispatched the marines to
put down a rebellion against the pro-American government in Nicaragua. A
reciprocal trade agreement with Canada was rejected by Canadian voters.
The Republican Nomination
In the two previous presidential
elections, the Republican incumbents—William McKinley in 1900
and Theodore Roosevelt in 1904—were nominated for second terms
without serious opposition. A solid record of
accomplishment and an overall good economy could have led
President Taft to gain the same honor in 1912. He
solidified and built on a foundation laid by the Roosevelt
administration for the federal regulation of business, society,
and the natural environment. However, many progressives
developed a more radical agenda, which included greater
government intervention in the economy (even to the point of
controlling major industries), removal of legal obstacles to
trade unionism, and mechanisms for more direct democracy—direct
election of U.S. senators, ballot initiative, and recall of
public officials. Congressional Republicans divided into
progressive and conservative factions, and the president
increasingly sided with the latter.
Taft probably could have survived the party’s
ideological conflict had he not personally offended his political mentor,
Theodore Roosevelt. They were quickly at odds when Taft replaced most of
Roosevelt’s cabinet in 1909 with more conservative men. In early 1910,
Taft’s firing of Chief Forester Pinchot was seen by progressive Republicans as a
betrayal of the former president and his principle of environmental
conservation. Still, the president and his mentor maintained a cordial, if
strained, relationship.
During the 1910 congressional election, Roosevelt
supported both Taft’s candidates in New York and progressives in the West.
On August 31, his “New Nationalism” speech anticipated the modern welfare state
in which a strong federal government intervened to help workers and consumers
against the negative effects of big business (which he accepted as “the result
of an imperative economic law”). Taft and conservative Republicans were
shocked by the ex-president’s lurch to the left.
The election resulted in a shift of power between
the parties, as Democrats took control of the House, and within the GOP, as
progressives gained seats. In December, the National Progressive
Republican League was formed to promote reform legislation and, implicitly, to
replace Taft with a progressive nominee, presumably Senator Robert La Follette
of Wisconsin. Although dismissed as the “new Salvation Army” by President
Taft, the group held the balance of power in the 62nd Congress
(1911-1913).
In 1911, Roosevelt became a
contributing editor of Outlook magazine, which he used as a platform for
his political views. He occasionally corresponded with Taft, but mainly
communicated with the progressive wing. Roosevelt told the press he was
not a candidate, and refused to discuss other possible candidates.
Privately, he criticized Taft and La Follette, while assuming that the president
would be renominated and then lose the general election.
Meanwhile, Taft hurt his
standing among GOP conservatives by his administration’s vigorous antitrust
policy. However, it was the “trust-buster” ex-president who broke
irrevocably with his successor over the antitrust suit against the United States
Steel Corporation. Unknown to Taft, his administration’s brief against US
Steel cited the firm’s purchase of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company in 1907,
which had been approved by then-President Roosevelt. The ex-president was
furious, and soon indicated to friends that he might seek the party’s
nomination. Roosevelt wanted it to seem like a response to popular demand,
so he and his advisors wrote a public petition, which was signed by eight
Republican governors, beseeching him to run. On February 12, 1912, he
announced his presidential candidacy with a slang phrase spoken by cowboys
preparing to fight: “My hat is in the ring.”
Roosevelt’s entry into the race for the Republican nomination undercut the La
Follette campaign, but the Wisconsin senator continued campaigning through the
convention. On February 22, the former president’s “Charter for Democracy”
speech added the recall of judicial decisions (subject only to Supreme Court
review) to his growing list of direct democracy initiatives. The
controversial suggestion moved even some of his conservative friends, such as
Henry Cabot Lodge and Elihu Root, into Taft’s column. Since President Taft
had patronage and the loyalty of many state party organizations, Roosevelt hoped
to amass delegates in states holding preferential primaries in which voters cast
ballots directly. It was the first presidential contest in American
history in which primaries played a key role.
Roosevelt’s campaigning
compelled Taft to hit the hustings, and both engaged in personal verbal sparring
that tended to obscure the issues. Roosevelt called Taft a “fathead” who
was “dumber than a guinea pig,” to which the initially stunned president
responded by labeling his challenger a “demagogue” and a “dangerous egotist.”
The intense rivalry between their supporters erupted in fistfights, lockouts,
and riots at local and state conventions. Roosevelt won 9 of 12
primaries—Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio (Taft’s home state),
Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, and California—losing to Taft
narrowly in Massachusetts and to La Follette in Wisconsin and North Dakota.
The former president won 51% of the total primary vote to Taft’s 33.5% and La
Follette’s 15.5%. Since the incumbent president did well in non-primary
states, the delegate count on the eve of the convention was: 432 for
Roosevelt, 326 for Taft, and 41 for La Follette.
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