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home describe conditions as they were when you arrived and the improvements made.

Draw a map of the Canal Zone, showing the canal, Panama, Colon, Pedro Miguel. If you prefer, make a model of the canal on the sand table. For a detailed description of the canal, read Hall and Chester's Panama and the Canal or Bishop's Panama Gateway.

On a map of the world, show how the Panama Canal has affected commerce. Use black lines to show the old routes used before the canal was built, and red lines for the new Panama Canal routes.

Write in fifty words your opinion of Roosevelt's "Big Stick" policy. References for Teachers.-Fish, The Path of Empire (Chron. of Am.); XV.-XVII.; Shepherd, The Hispanic Nations of the New World (Chron of Am.); Shepherd, Latin America; Latané, America as a World Power, XII., XV.; Latané, From Isolation to Leadership; Jones, Caribbean Interests of the U. S.; Verrill, South and Central Am. Trade Conditions of Today; Ross, South of Panama; Bishop, Panama Gateway; Roosevelt, An Autobiography, XIV.

For Pupils.-Hall and Chester, Panama and the Canal; Barstow, Progress of a United People, 107-124.

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CHAPTER XXXIV

PROBLEMS, OLD AND NEW (1909-1917)

Taft succeeds Roosevelt.-William H. Taft, the twentyseventh President of the United States, was born in Cincinnati. He graduated second in a class of 121 at Yale, but in popularity he was first by the vote of his class. In his freshman year he gained the applause of his

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class by throwing the sophomore champion wrestler. He was a member of a university crew that rowed Harvard.

After graduating from college, he studied law and became a judge of the circuit court of the United States. He was the first civil governor of the Philippine Islands. He then served as Secretary of War under Roosevelt and was sent to Cuba to adjust an insurrection there. His success was marked in all these fields. He was nominated for the presidency by the Republicans (1908) and defeated his Democratic opponent, William J. Bryan. Taft served four years as President (1909-1913). After having been a private citizen for eight years, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1921), being the first ex-president to receive that honor.

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT

Photograph made in 1922 when he was chief justice of the Supreme Court.

An old problem.-Under Roosevelt the problems had seemed mostly new. The people had formed the habit of expecting Napoleonic surprises from him.

Taft found himself face to face with an old problem, that of the tariff. A change in the tariff usually meant trouble for the party in power, because every change made the shoe pinch somewhere. A majority of the people now believed that the tariff gave unfair privileges to manufacturers and raised the cost of living. Taft called a special session of Congress to revise the tariff. In the Senate the influence of the "standpatters," who objected to change, was so great that a revision satisfactory to the majority was not made. Upon the passage of the PayneAldrich tariff bill, so called from the names of its proposers in the House and the Senate, the Republican party was divided into two hostile camps, "standpatters" and "progressives."

The tariff question prompted Taft to favor taking two steps. (1) He appointed a Tariff Commission to study the subject carefully from a scientific basis of deciding how much protection was needed to enable our industries to meet foreign competition. The Republicans were defeated at the next congressional election, and the Democrats passed a number of separate tariff bills, lowering the duties on special things. Taft vetoed all these bills because he wanted to wait for the report of the Tariff Commission. (2) In order to reduce the cost of living, Taft induced Congress to agree to reciprocity with Canada. This meant that Canada and the United States should exchange many products free of duty. Free Canadian wheat, eggs, butter, and cattle would, he thought, lower the cost of living. The farmers now became angry because they did not want the tariff lowered on what they produced. The Canadians settled the question by voting against reciprocity, and so the plan came to nothing.

Wider and safer use of the post office.-In Taft's administration the post office became more efficient in three ways:

I. Postal savings banks were opened in the post offices of cities and large towns. The people felt that these banks were

absolutely safe, and at once began to deposit millions of dollars of their savings in them.

II. A parcels post system was put in operation, in spite of the strong opposition of the express companies. This law provided that packages could be sent through the mails at rates which were less than the express companies charged.

III. For a long time large sums of money had been made by those who sent through the mails misleading circulars, letters, and advertisements. Sometimes the mails would be flooded with circulars telling how a fortune could be made from investing in a certain mining or oil stock, which was really worthless. One advertiser made nearly a hundred thousand dollars from a worthless antifat medicine. The use of the mails by such swindlers made the United States a partner in their crime. The Post Office Department began (1910) a vigorous prosecution of these swindlers. Hundreds were sent to jail, among them a wellknown writer who mailed misleading circulars of mining stocks. This crusade saved the public millions of dollars each year.

Admission of the last states.-In Taft's administration New Mexico (1912) and Arizona (1912) became states. This completed the list of forty-eight states formed from the unbroken stretch of land from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to Mexico. Utah (1896) and Oklahoma (1907) had already been admitted, so that there were now no more territories in the continental part of the United States.

The election of 1912.-Taft was renominated by the Republican convention, which was controlled by the conservatives, or "standpatters." The progressives then formed a new party and nominated Theodore Roosevelt. Woodrow Wilson, the governor of New Jersey, was the Democratic candidate for the presidency. The campaign of 1912 ranks among the most exciting in our history. The new Progressive party called for a downward revision of the tariff, equal suffrage for men and women, the prohibition of child labor, and for social and industrial justice in general. It polled more than four million votes, a record

breaking number for a new party. The Republican party dropped into third place, carrying the electoral vote of only two states. The Democrats elected their ticket.

Woodrow Wilson.-The twenty-eighth President of the United States was Woodrow Wilson (1856- ), who served for two terms (1913-1921). He was born in Virginia, the state that had become famous as the mother of Presidents (p. 272). His father was a clergyman, who gave him a taste for literature by often reading aloud at home. The son went to Princeton, where he graduated with the high average of ninety per cent for his four years in college. Wilson was the sixth Fresident since the Civil War to graduate from college with high standing.

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WOODROW WILSON Photograph made in 1917.

He was manager of the university football team and senior managing editor of the Princetonian. In his senior year he wrote a widely quoted essay in which he said: "Congress is a deliberative body in which there is little deliberation; we hail an adjournment of Congress as a temporary immunity from danger."

He practiced law for a very short time and then went to Johns Hopkins University, where he took the degree of Ph.D. After having been president of Princeton University for eight years, he was elected governor of New Jersey. In that office he was noted for securing progressive legislation. He had a law passed to compensate workmen for injuries, and he brought the New Jersey corporations under rigid state control. He was then elected President of the United States, and at the end of his first term he was reëlected over his Republican opponent, Charles E. Hughes, after a very close contest.

Tariff reform. The Democratic platform demanded a tariff for revenue only. Wilson called Congress in special session, just

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