most important of all, new emphasis was given to the "conservation of National resources". a doctrine formulated by Gifford Pinchot, and popularized by the President.

833. President Roosevelt was attacked by certain of the "interests" as a disturber of "prosperity"; but he had a hold upon the nation such as no other Presidents had approached, with the exception of Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln.

THE ARROW ROCK DAM (Idaho), still building in 1918: part of one of the most famous of all the government's projects to irrigate arid lands. This dam is 67 feet higher than the great Roosevelt Dam in Arizona.

At the same time, extreme radicals disliked his aggressive foreign policy (§ 722) and his inclination to paternalistic despotism at home. Such critics pointed out (1) that he used his tremendous personal and official power to aid no other real "progressive" in any of the many State contests with Privilege; (2) that his trust prosecutions had not hurt any money

1 Read Overton Price's The Land We Live In,-"The Boy's Book of Conservation."

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king; (3) that he had intimate personal relations with some of the trust magnates,-heads of what he chose to call "good trusts"; (4) that during his seven years the number of trusts had greatly multiplied and their capitalization vastly increased (§ 792), along with the new device of concentrating power by the system of interlocking directorates (§ 791); and (5) that he had as yet taken no stand to reform the tariff, in which his "good trusts" were deeply interested.

834. In October, 1907, the Knickerbocker Trust Company in New York failed, from speculation and dishonest management, and brought down with it a group of banks supposed to be strong. This began the "panic of 1907." Wall Street, and "Big Business" generally, attributed the panic to "Theodore the Meddler," who, they asserted, had destroyed public confidence by his attacks upon the commercial interests. Many radicals, on the other hand, claimed that Big Business had "manufactured" the panic, so as to intimidate the President and the other reformers into keeping hands off. In any case, for once, the cry "It hurts business" failed to check the

current for reform.

835. Roosevelt thought his Secretary of War, William H. Taft, especially fitted to carry on his reforms. Accordingly in 1908, he forced Taft upon the Republicans as his successor. The Democrats nominated Bryan for the third time. Between the Roosevelt Republicans of that time and the Bryan Democrats there were many points of sympathy; while within each party a large class was bitterly opposed to these reform policies, and desired a return to the older attitude of the government as a promoter of business prosperity rather than of human welfare. Owing to the general confidence of large masses in Roosevelt, and to the aid given the Republicans by aggregated wealth, Taft was elected overwhelmingly.

836. As Roosevelt's Secretary of War, Mr. Taft had been a loyal subordinate; but now it soon appeared that he did not himself believe in the "Roosevelt policies." Instead, he belonged distinctly in the conservative ranks.

A group of capitalists had been trying to engross the mineral wealth of Alaska, in part by fraudulent entries. Roosevelt had checked the proceeding by temporarily withdrawing the lands from entry. Richard Ballinger had been the attorney of the grasping ring of capitalists, and previously had served them with information even while in the service of the government. President Taft was induced to appoint this man his Secretary of the Interior, and it seemed as though the grab would then go through under his sanction. The President even dismissed both Pinchot (a devoted public servant and a man of high standing in the nation) and also Louis Glavis, a subordinate of Ballinger, who had gallantly exposed the treacherous designs of his chief with necessary disregard for official etiquette. Happily, the sacrifice of Glavis, the war waged month after month by Collier's Weekly, and the consequent Congressional investigation, even though by a packed committee, compelled Ballinger to resign, and saved the Alaskan wealth for the nation. No one suspected the President of corrupt motives; but it was plain that the corrupt interests had his ear. Other events made his position clear. He did not scruple to use his vast power of patronage to injure progressive Congressmen in their home districts.

837. Another public clash between President Taft and the Progressives came on the tariff question. The Republican platform of 1908 had declared for a thoroughgoing revision of the Dingley Tariff (§ 747), asserting that duties ought only to "equal the difference between the cost of production at home and abroad, together with a reasonable profit for American industries."2 Mr. Taft, too, had waged his campaign largely on definite pledges for tariff reduction. Shrewd observers

1 Glavis' "insubordination" consisted in a noble patriotism which led him to show fealty to the American people rather than to a traitorous superior in office. Such patriotism, more needed than courage on the battlefield, cannot be praised too highly.

2 Somewhat more definitely, the Democratic platform declared for immediate reduction of duties on necessaries and for placing on the "free list ” all"articles entering into competition with trust-controlled products."

§ 838]

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doubted somewhat whether the politicians of the party were not too thoroughly in the grip of the trusts to make any real inroad upon the protected interests; and the result justified the skeptical prophecies that any revision by the Republican machine of that day would be a revision upward. The PayneAldrich Tariff of 1910, while making improvements at a few points, actually aggravated the evils which the nation had expected to have remedied. It was a brazen defiance of party pledges in the campaign. The House committee, which framed the bill, was notorious, made up, almost to a man, of representatives of beneficiaries of protection - a clear case of turning the place of sheep dogs over to wolves.

The bill and the committee were attacked fiercely by a great number of the more independent Republican papers and leaders; but the great body of Republican Congressmen, it was soon clear, would "stand pat" for the "System." A radical section then broke away in a definite "Insurgent" movement. In the House, the "System" Speaker, "Uncle Joe" Cannon, aided by the necessary number of "System" Democrats, easily forced the bill through, with brief consideration. In the Senate, where debate could not so easily be muzzled, insurgent Republican leaders like La Follette and Cummins exposed mercilessly the atrocities of the measure, though they could not hinder its becoming law. And then the compliant President, in attempts to defend his "Standpat" friends from public criticism, declared it the best tariff ever enacted.

838. The Congressional election of 1910 was a revolution. The overwhelming Republican majority was wiped out by as large a Democratic majority; and in various impregnable Republican districts, Insurgents succeeded Standpatters. Even in the slowly changing Senate, Democrats and Insurgents together mustered a clear majority. Some progressive legislation was now enacted. A "parcel post" law, similar to those long in use in European countries, struck down the infamous monopoly of the great express companies (§ 731); the admirable "Children's Bureau was added to the government

machinery; and constitutional amendments were at last submitted to the people providing for income taxes and direct election of Senators.1

839. Forty-five years had elapsed since the ratification of the Civil War amendments, and sixty years passed between those and the last preceding amendment, despite the rapidly changing needs of the nineteenth century. The first ten amendments, too, were really part of a bargain that secured the ratification of the Constitution itself; the eleventh and twelfth resulted from fear of civil war; and the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth were secured by war. These two last, — sixteenth and seventeenth, are the only "normal" amendments in the century and a quarter of our national history. This fact, together with the indirect devices to which we have been driven (§§ 347, 828), suggests that the process of written amendment is too difficult. One of the foremost subjects in the progressive program is some "gateway" amendment, to make that process easier.

840. The movement in the States for direct action in choosing Senators has been described (§ 828). In 1911 the notorious purchase of a Senatorship from Illinois by " Big Business" for a certain Mr. Lorimer aroused the country again to the need of nation-wide action. True, a Senate committee of " Standpatters" made the usual whitewashing report on the Lorimer case; but it was riddled pitifully by the Insurgents and by the progressive press. Still on the vote to expel, the Standpatters managed to rally the one-third vote necessary to save their colleague. A resolution for an amendment to provide for popular election of Senators was then pending, and it was soon after defeated by almost precisely the same vote. But in the spring came a special session of the new Congress with large progressive gains; and, in 1912, Lorimer was expelled and the amendment passed.

841. In 1912, Roosevelt announced himself a candidate against Taft for the Republican Presidential nomination. There followed a bitter campaign of disgraceful recrimination between the President and his former friend and chief. In 13 States, Republican voters could express their choice for a candidate in direct primaries (§ 825). Roosevelt carried 9 of these; La Follette, 2; and Taft, 2. President Taft, however, controlled the solid mass of Southern delegates and the

1 See § 746. Both amendments were ratified in 1913.