574 Chapter 21 The Age of Reform
Taft honestly wanted to carry out most of
Roosevelt’s policies. He enforced the Sherman Act vig-
orously and continued to expand the national forest
reserves. He signed the Mann-Elkins Act of 1910,
which empowered the ICC to suspend rate increases
without waiting for a shipper to complain and estab-
lished the Commerce Court to speed the settlement of
railroad rate cases. An eight-hour day for all persons
engaged in work on government contracts, mine safety
legislation, and several other reform measures received
his approval. He even summoned Congress into special
session specifically to reduce tariff duties—something
that Roosevelt had not dared to attempt.
But Taft had been disturbed by Roosevelt’s sweep-
ing use of executive power. “We have got to work out
our problems on the basis of law,” he insisted. Whereas
Roosevelt had excelled at maneuvering around congres-
sional opposition and at finding ways to accomplish his
objectives without waiting for Congress to act, Taft
adamantly refused to use such tactics. His restraint was
in many ways admirable, but it reduced his effectiveness.
In 1910 Taft got into difficulty with the conserva-
tionists. Although he believed in husbanding natural
resources carefully, he did not like the way Roosevelt
had circumvented Congress in adding to the forest
reserves. He demanded, and eventually obtained, spe-
cific legislation to accomplish this purpose. The issue
that aroused the conservationists concerned the
integrity of his secretary of the interior, Richard A.
Ballinger. A less than ardent conservationist, Ballinger
returned to the public domain certain waterpower
sites that the Roosevelt administration had withdrawn
on the legally questionable ground that they were to
become ranger stations. Ballinger’s action alarmed
Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, the darling of the con-
servationists. When Pinchot learned that Ballinger
intended to validate the shaky claim of mining inter-
ests to a large tract of coal-rich land in Alaska, he
launched an intemperate attack on the secretary.
In the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy Taft felt
obliged to support his own man. The coal lands dis-
pute was complex, and Pinchot’s charges were exag-
gerated. It was certainly unfair to call Ballinger “the
most effective opponent the conservation policies
have yet had.” When Pinchot, whose own motives
were partly political, persisted in criticizing Ballinger,
Taft dismissed him. He had no choice under the cir-
cumstances, but a more adept politician might have
found some way of avoiding a showdown.
Breakup of the Republican Party
One ominous aspect of the Ballinger-Pinchot affair
was that Pinchot was a close friend of Theodore
Roosevelt. After Taft’s inauguration, Roosevelt had
gone off to hunt big game in Africa, bearing in his
baggage an autographed photograph of his protégé
and a touching letter of appreciation, in which the
new president said, “I can never forget that the
power I now exercise was a voluntary transfer from
you to me.” For months, as he trudged across
Africa, guns blazing, Roosevelt was out of touch
with affairs in the United States. As soon as he
emerged from the wilderness in March 1910, bear-
ing more than 3,000 trophies, including nine lions,
five elephants, and thirteen rhinos, he was caught
up in the squabble between the progressive mem-
bers of his party and its titular head. Pinchot met
him in Italy, laden with injured innocence and a
packet of angry letters from various progressives.
TR’s intimate friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge,
essentially a conservative, barraged him with mes-
sages, the gist of which was that Taft was lazy and
inept and that Roosevelt should prepare to become
the “Moses” who would guide the party “out of the
wilderness of doubt and discontent” into which
Taft had led it.
Roosevelt hoped to steer a middle course, but
Pinchot’s complaints impressed him. Taft had
decided to strike out on his own, he concluded. “No
man must render such a service as that I rendered
Taft and expect the individual... not in the end to
become uncomfortable and resentful,” he wrote
Lodge sadly. Taft sensed the former president’s cool-
ness and was offended. He was egged on by his ambi-
tious wife, who wanted him to stand clear of
Roosevelt’s shadow and establish his own reputation.
Perhaps the resulting rupture was inevitable.
The Republican party was dividing into two fac-
tions, the progressives and the Old Guard. Forced
to choose between them, Taft threw in his lot with
the Old Guard. Roosevelt backed the progressives.
Speaking at Osawatomie, Kansas, in August 1910
he came out for a comprehensive program of social
legislation, which he called the New Nationalism.
Besides attacking “special privilege” and the
“unfair money-getting” practices of “lawbreakers
of great wealth,” he called for a broad expansion of
federal power. “The betterment we seek must be
accomplished,” he said, “mainly through the
National Government.”
The final break came in October 1911 when Taft
ordered an antitrust suit against U.S. Steel. “The
effort at prohibiting all combination has substantially
failed,” Taft said. “The way out lies... in completely
controlling them.” He was prepared to enforce the
Sherman Act “or die in the attempt.” But this initia-
tive angered Roosevelt because the lawsuit focused on
U.S. Steel’s absorption of the Tennessee Coal and
Iron Company, which Roosevelt had unofficially