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His policies can still be seen today in the regulation of monopolies and the FDA. He was the first regulator of food and drugs within America. The FDA was inspired by his original policies, and continues to be the official regulator of food quality and transportation… as well as drugs

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https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/Pure-Food-and-Drug-Act/

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On this date, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 (PL 59-384) passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, 240 to 17. Muckraking journalists had long reported on the appallingly unsanitary conditions of the country's manufacturing plants, especially those in Chicago's meat-packing industry. But it wasn't until the public outcry following the publication of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle that Congress moved on legislation that would prevent "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs or medicines, and liquors." The version of the bill which became the Pure Food and Drug Act originated in the Senate (S.88), and after being sent to the House it was reported out of the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee with amendments on March 7th. It sat unconsidered for three months, causing some to wonder if Speaker Joe Cannon of Illinois was delaying it. On June 21st, with only a few days left to the session, Representative James Mann of Illinois captivated the chamber with a speech about fruit that had been colored with poisonous red dye, and liquor that had been distilled with chemical fillers. The New York Times called the debate over the Pure Food bill "one of the wildest times that has been seen this session." After the measure passed, the House and Senate met in conference, settled their differences, and sent the bill back to their respective chambers for final consideration. Following a round of applause, the House approved the conference report on June 29th. President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drug Act into law the next day.

Related Highlight Subjects

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The Pure Food and Drug Act | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives

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On this date, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 (PL 59-384) passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, 240 to 17. Muckraking journalists had long reported on the appallingly unsanitary conditions of the country's manufacturing plants, especially those in Chicago's meat-packing industry.

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The square deal was a social and domestic policy of Roosevelt that addressed many monopolies at the time. Harpers weekly was one of the prominent newspapers at the time and published this cartoon. You can see Teddy Roosevelt in the window overseeing Charles Bonaparte (the attorney general) shooting Charles Mellon (head of a railroad company). This signified his policies against the monopolies, seeing as though he implemented the first federal act against monopolies and their practices. *see successes for more details*
The publisher of this cartoon clearly disagreed with Roosevelts economic policies, seeing as though the cartoon depicts the harm of the wealthy businessman by the government

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- City life with the industrial revolution caused horrible sanitation and living conditions. Many photographers and journalists began to capture the poor living conditions that the workers experienced, leading to his food and monopoly reforms
- The factories and increase in the extrapolation of natural resources caused land destruction at the time
- Economic disparities between the classes
- Monopolies were dominating the economy and were taking advantage of the consumers

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The Square Deal-
This was Roosevelt's domestic plan to help and reform the problems that he had seen in the environmental, corporate, and consumer practices. He characterized this social program by the 3 C's:
1. Consumer protection
2. Corporate regulation
3. Conservationism
US Forest Service (1905)-
Roosevelt pressed for Congress to establish the first government-owned land which could not be available for commercial use. These became public parks that he hoped would conserve forests and improve environmental treatment. The government ended up consolidating over 194 million acres in the US
The Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)-
It banned the foreign and interstate transportation of adulterated or mislabeled food and drug products. It also allowed for the US Bureau of Chemistry to inspect and prosecute when the Act is violated
Meat Inspection Act (1906)-
Similar to the Pure Food and Drug Act, this allowed for the inspection of meat, prosecuting for mislabeled and poor sanitary conditions of the slaughtering
Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)-
This was done prior to his presidency when he served on the Civil Service Commission. He continued to enforce this throughout his presidency, busting corporations that had monopolistic policies. This was the first federal act against monopolies

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https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Learn-About-TR/TR-Encyclopedia/Capitalism-and-Labor/The-Sherman-Act.aspx

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The Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 became law while Theodore Roosevelt was serving on the U.S. Civil Service Commission, but it played a large and important role during his presidency.

When Theodore Roosevelt's first administration sought to end business monopolies, it used the Sherman Anti-Trust Act as the tool to do so. Passed after a series of large corporate mergers during the 1880s, this Act enabled government departments and private individuals to use the court system to break up any organization or contract alleged to be in restraint of trade. The federal government used the Act to invalidate formal and informal arrangements by which different companies in the same industry set prices, though for the first decade of its existence the Act did little to slow the rate of business mergers.

This changed when, in 1902, President Roosevelt urged his Justice Department to dismantle the Northern Securities Corporation. This entity was a holding company, a combination of separate railroads administered by a Board of Trustees. At issue was its control of railroading in the northern tier of the United States from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest. After losing in the lower courts, Northern Security trustees appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 in March 1904 that the Northern Securities Corporation violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the first major example of trust-busting during Roosevelt's presidency.

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When Theodore Rooseveltâ€™s first administration sought to end business monopolies, it used the Sherman Anti-Trust Act as the tool to do so. Passed after a series of large corporate mergers during the 1880s, this Act enabled government departments and private individuals to use the court system to break up any organization or contract alleged to be in restraint of trade.

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https://www.britannica.com/topic/Meat-Inspection-Act#:~:text=The%20Meat%20Inspection%20Act%20of,slaughtering%20and%20processing%20of%20livestock.

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What is the Meat Inspection Act?

When was the Meat Inspection Act passed?

Where was the Meat Inspection Act passed?

Who passed the Meat Inspection Act?

Why was the Meat Inspection Act passed?

Meat Inspection Act of 1906, U.S. legislation, signed by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt on June 30, 1906, that prohibited the sale of adulterated or misbranded livestock and derived products as food and ensured that livestock were slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions. The law reformed the meatpacking industry, mandating that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspect all cattle, swine, sheep, goats, and horses both before and after they were slaughtered and processed for human consumption. The law also applied to imported products, which were treated under similarly rigorous foreign inspection standards. The 1906 legislation amended prior Meat Inspection Acts of 1890 and 1891 and other laws that had provided for USDA inspection of slaughtered animals and meat products but had proven ineffective in regulating many unsafe and unsanitary practices by the meatpacking industry. The law was substantially amended by the Wholesome Meat Act of 1967.

Origins of reform

Beginning in the 1880s, American chemist Harvey W. Wiley, chief of the Bureau of Chemistry of the USDA, issued reports noting the health hazards posed by the adulteration of processed foods such as canned meat and by chemicals used as preservatives and colouring agents. The Association of Official Agricultural Chemists (an organization Wiley founded in 1884) began lobbying for federal legislation governing the packing and purity of food products.

The first widespread public attention to the unsafe practices of the meatpacking industry came in 1898, when the press reported that Armour & Co., had supplied tons of rotten canned beef to the U.S. Army in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. The meat had been packed in tins along with a visible layer of boric acid, which was thought to act as a preservative and was used to mask the stench of the rotten meat. Troops who consumed the meat fell ill, becoming unfit for combat, and some died. Roosevelt, who served in Cuba as a colonel, testified in 1899 that he would have eaten his old hat as soon as eat what he called "embalmed beef."

The canned meat scandal prompted Thomas F. Dolan, a former superintendent for Armour & Co., to sign an affidavit noting the ineffectiveness of government inspectors and stating that the company's common practice was to pack and sell "carrion." The New York Journal published Dolan's statement on March 4, 1899. The Senate then formed the Pure-Food Investigating Committee, which held hearings in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York City from 1899 to 1900. The committee declared such common meat preservatives as borax, salicylic acid, and formaldehyde to be "unwholesome." The press also reported from the committee's hearings that some of the nation's food supply was adulterated-made impure by the addition of foreign or inferior substances. These concerns were in addition to the health problems posed by the packaging of substandard or condemned meat products.

At the centre of public outrage was the " Beef Trust"-a collaborative group made up of the five largest meatpacking companies-and its base of packinghouses in Chicago's Packingtown area. Journalists published pieces in radical and muckraking magazines detailing the monopolistic and exploitive practices of Beef Trust businesses as well as the unsanitary conditions of the packinghouses and their tactics to evade even the smallest levels of government inspection. Of those journalists, American writer Charles Edward Russell is perhaps best known, for his series of articles about the Beef Trust that were published as The Greatest Trust in the World (1905).

Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

The broadest public attention to the Chicago packinghouses came with the work of Upton Sinclair. In 1904 Sinclair covered a labour strike at Chicago's Union Stockyards for the socialist magazine Appeal to Reason and proposed that he spend a year in Chicago to write an exposé of the Beef Trust's exploitation of workers. The result was his best-known novel, (1906), which vividly described not only the working conditions of packinghouses but also the horrific meatpacking practices that produced the food itself. The novel first appeared serially in Appeal to Reason on February 25, 1905, and it was published as a book by Doubleday, Page & Company a year later, after a report resulting from an independent investigation by labour commissioner Charles P. Neill and social worker James Bronson Reynolds confirmed Sinclair's depiction of the packinghouses.

Roosevelt, an avowed "trustbuster," was sent an advance copy of The Jungle. He sent Neill and Reynolds to investigate the Beef Trust's meatpacking practices. The novel was an instant international best seller and prompted massive public outrage at the contamination and sanitation issues raised in the work, even though Sinclair's primary intent in writing the story was to promote socialism. Also contributing significantly to the broad public response was the larger movement made by muckraking journalists and Progressive activists who called for reform in government regulation of industry. There also was growing support within the industry for regulation in response to heightened public awareness.

By early 1906 both the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act had long been stalled in Congress, but, when the Neill-Reynolds report had fully confirmed Sinclair's charges, Roosevelt used the threat of disclosing its contents to speed along the passage of both acts, which became law on the same day.
Kristen L. Rouse

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Meat Inspection Act of 1906 | History, Summary, & Facts

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Meat Inspection Act of 1906, U.S. legislation that prohibited the sale of adulterated or misbranded livestock and derived products as food and ensured that livestock were slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions. The law reformed the meatpacking industry and mandated USDA inspection.

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14 Points Speech
Read the speech at https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/content/wilson-14points-speech.html
The 14 Points speech was given to congress by WW toward the end of WW1. Wilson outlines all of his progressive and liberal ideas by setting a guideline for future peace. He suggests transparent governments, arms reductions, freedom of the seas, free trade, and self-determination for oppressed minorities. Wilson was very passionate because this is what he believed needed to happen for world peace. His guidelines were used some in Paris Peace talks, but most points were ditched in the treaty. His points, which outlines his beliefs, explain why he was worried the treaty was too harsh on Germany.

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https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/wilson-delivers-fourteen-points-speech

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The Fourteen Points speech of President Woodrow Wilson was an address delivered before a joint meeting of Congress on January 8, 1918, during which Wilson outlined his vision for a stable, long-lasting peace in Europe, the Americas and the rest of the world following World War I.

Wilson's proposal called for the victorious Allies to set unselfish peace terms with the vanquished Central Powers of World War I, including freedom of the seas, the restoration of territories conquered during the war and the right to national self-determination in such contentious regions as the Balkans.

The devastation and carnage of the First World War grimly illustrated to Wilson the unavoidable relationship between international stability and American national security.

At the same time, he sought to placate American isolationists by stating that the world must "be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression."

What Were the Fourteen Points?

In his speech, Wilson itemized 14 strategies to ensure national security and world peace. Several points addressed specific territorial issues in Europe, but the most significant sections set the tone for postwar American diplomacy and the ideals that would form the backbone of U.S. foreign policy as the nation achieved superpower status in the early 20th century.

Wilson could foresee that international relations would only become more important to American security and global commerce. He advocated equal trade conditions, arms reduction and national sovereignty for former colonies of Europe's weakening empires.

One of Wilson's purposes in delivering the Fourteen Points speech was to present a practical alternative to the traditional notion of an international balance of power preserved by alliances among nations-belief in the viability of which had been shattered by World War I-and to the Bolshevik-inspired dreams of world revolution that at the time were gaining ground both within and outside of Russia.

Wilson hoped also to keep a conflict-ridden Russia in the war on the Allied side. This effort met with failure, as the Bolsheviks sought peace with the Central Powers at the end of 1917, shortly after taking power following the Russian Revolution.

In other ways, however, Wilson's Fourteen Points played an essential role in world politics over the next several years. The speech was translated and distributed to the soldiers and citizens of Germany and Austria-Hungary and contributed to their decision to agree to an armistice in November 1918.

Treaty of Versailles

Like the man himself, Wilson's Fourteen Points were liberal, democratic and idealistic. He spoke in grand and inspiring terms, but was less certain of the specifics of how his aims would be achieved.

At the Paris Peace Conference, Wilson had to contend with the leaders of the other victorious Allied nations, who disagreed with many of the Fourteen Points and demanded stiff penalties for Germany in the Treaty of Versailles.

Importantly, Wilson urged the establishment of an international governing body of united nations for the purpose of guaranteeing political independence and territorial integrity to great and small countries alike. His idea gave birth to the short-lived League of Nations. The more viable United Nations would come into existence only after the conclusion of another devastating global conflict: World War II.

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President Wilson delivers "Fourteen Points" speech

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The Fourteen Points speech of President Woodrow Wilson was an address delivered before a joint meeting of Congress on January 8, 1918, during which Wilson outlined his vision for a stable, long-lasting peace in Europe, the Americas and the rest of the world following World War I.

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https://www.britannica.com/summary/Theodore-Roosevelts-Achievements

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Home Politics, Law & Government World Leaders Presidents & Heads of States Theodore Roosevelt

Introduction

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th president of the United States, a writer, conservationist, outdoorsman, and soldier. His many accomplishments included expanding the powers of the presidency and of the federal government in support of the public interest during clashes between big business and labor. He steered the nation toward an active role in world politics, particularly in Europe and Asia. He won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1906 for mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese War, and he secured the route and began construction of the Panama Canal.

The Early Years of Presidency

Theodore Roosevelt Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

After assuming the presidency following William McKinley's death in 1901, Roosevelt quickly transformed the public image of the presidential office. He renamed the executive mansion the White House and opened its doors to entertain cowboys, prizefighters, explorers, writers, and artists. Roosevelt gave speeches from what he called the presidency's "bully pulpit." His aim was to raise public consciousness about the nation's role in world politics, the need to control big businesses that dominated the economy, and the impact of political corruption. Although he pushed for change, he was also cautious early on, recognizing that both houses of Congress were controlled by conservative Republicans who opposed reforms. Still, Roosevelt used the power of the presidency to expand the office and the federal government.

Trust-busting and the Square Deal

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

As industry developed, competing firms began joining together to form large organizations capable of dominating an entire industry. These organizations were called trusts. Roosevelt fought to break up these businesses through his "trust-busting" policy. In 1902 he enforced the Sherman Antitrust Act and brought a lawsuit that led to the division of a huge railroad corporation. During the next seven years Roosevelt initiated lawsuits against 43 other big businesses. In 1902 Pennsylvania coal miners went on strike. Roosevelt stepped in to mediate the strike and met with representatives from both sides. He threatened to call in the Army to run the mines, and he put pressure on the mine owners. His tactics worked to end the strike and to gain a modest pay hike for the miners. Roosevelt characterized his actions as working toward a " Square Deal" between business interests and labor. Once he won the 1904 election, he continued his Square Deal programs. He pushed Congress to grant regulatory powers to the Interstate Commerce Commission to control railroad rates. In 1906, in response to reports by investigative journalists known as " muckrakers," Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass food and safety acts to protect consumers and to investigate the poor conditions of food-processing industries.

Foreign Policy

Roosevelt was all for the United States playing a key role in international power politics and felt it was the nation's responsibility to do its part to maintain peace and order. When describing foreign policy, he quoted an African proverb, saying that the best way to conduct it was to "speak softly and carry a big stick." In 1904, responding to the threat of European powers intervening in Latin America, Roosevelt created a policy statement known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. It stated that the United States would be responsible for policing Latin America and would not allow for any outside interference in the region. Roosevelt intervened in the Russo-Japanese War when he brought both nations together and mediated an end to the war.

Panama Canal

In 1903 Roosevelt helped Panama gain its independence from Colombia. In supporting Panama, Roosevelt cleared the way for the building of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. This waterway gave the United States the advantage of being able to sail more easily and quickly between the east and west coasts. Construction immediately began on the Panama Canal and was completed in 1914. Roosevelt considered the construction of the canal his greatest accomplishment as president. Years later he noted in his autobiography, "I took the Isthmus, started the canal and then left Congress not to debate the canal, but to debate me."

Conservation Movement

Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Roosevelt's years spent out west on his North Dakota ranch fostered his love of the outdoors and appreciation for the land and nature. The conservation of the forests and wildlife was a primary concern of his. Roosevelt pressed Congress to create the U.S. Forest Service in 1905 to manage government-owned forest reserves. He named Gifford Pinchot, a conservationist, to lead the agency. Roosevelt used his authority to designate public lands as national forests, thereby making them off-limits to commercial use or development. He set aside almost five times as much land-194 million acres-as all previous presidents combined. In 1908 he invited state leaders and scientists to the White House for a conference on the conservation of natural resources. As a result, 41 states created conservation commissions, and the National Conservation Commission was established.

Progressive Party and Later Years

Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Roosevelt left office in 1909 and was succeeded by his friend and fellow Republican William Howard Taft. The Republican Party was divided between progressives who supported Roosevelt's policies and conservatives who supported Taft. Roosevelt initially tried not to choose sides but in 1912 decided to run against Taft. After failing to win the Republican nomination, Roosevelt then formed the Progressive Party, also called the Bull Moose Party, and campaigned for president on a " New Nationalism" platform that called for increased government regulation and greater social welfare. However, the Democratic presidential candidate, Woodrow Wilson, won the election. During the 1916 election, Roosevelt left the Progressive Party and supported the Republican candidate, who lost by a narrow margin. By 1918 it looked as though Roosevelt might become the 1920 Republican presidential candidate, but he died on January 6, 1919.

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Summary of the major achievements of Theodore Roosevelt who, as the 26th president of the United States (1901-09), fought against business monopolies, advocated for a prominent U.S. role in world politics, cleared the way for construction of the Panama Canal, and promoted conservation efforts.

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NEW NATIONALISM is the term used to describe Theodore Roosevelt's political philosophy that the nation is the best instrument for advancing progressive democracy. In 1910, former President Theodore Roosevelt returned from safari to plunge into the 1910 congressional elections. The Republican Party was deciding, Roosevelt believed, whether to be "the party of the plain people" or "the party of privilege." On 31 August in Osawatomie, Kansas, Roosevelt called for a "New Nationalism" to "deal with new problems. The New Nationalism puts the national need before sectional or personal advantage."

Roosevelt's New Nationalism sought a transcendent idealism and a renewed faith through the power of democratic nationalism and activist government. The phrase came from Herbert Croly's 1909 work, The Promise of American Life, which was itself inspired by Roosevelt's presidency. Roosevelt collected his 1910 campaign speeches under the title "The New Nationalism."

"The New Nationalism" became Roosevelt's campaign platform in fighting his handpicked successor William Howard Taft for the Republican presidential nomination in 1912. Roosevelt advocated a strong, Hamiltonian government to balance big business. He advocated more corporate regulation, the physical evaluation of railroads, a graduated income tax, a reformed banking system, labor legislation, a direct primary, and a corrupt practices act.

During an unprecedented popular primary campaign in a dozen states, Roosevelt ripped into Taft and the Republican old guard, as the defenders of "privilege and injustice." Responding, Taft became the first president to stump for his own renomination. Eventually, Roosevelt won Republican hearts but Taft won the nomination, thanks to the party "steamroller" of bosses and officeholders.

The Democratic candidate, New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson, positioned himself between Taft, the hostage of big business, and Roosevelt, the apostle of big government. Wilson advocated a "New Freedom." Influenced by the progressive reformer Louis D. Brandeis, Wilson viewed decentralized government and constrained corporations as the recipe for a just democracy. Roosevelt's run for the presidency under the Progressive Party banner kept the central issues-and these two outsized personalities-in the forefront of Wilson's winning 1912 campaign.

Yet, the Roosevelt-Wilson contrast was not as dramatic as it appeared, then or now. Even as Roosevelt championed the rights of labor over property, he asked Americans "whenever they go in for reform," to "exact justice from one side as much as from the other." While the difference in emphasis was significant-and pointed to two major trends in American progressivism-both the New Nationalism and the New Freedom highlighted the reform consensus. Roosevelt reflected more of the fire breathing moralism of the politician Robert La Follette; Wilson displayed more the crisp, rational, monastic efficiency of the social crusader Jane Addams. Yet both men and both doctrines reflected a growing commitment in the early twentieth century to face the challenges of bigness, of modern corporate power, of the dislocations wrought by industrial capitalism. And both ideas helped shape the great reform movements of the twentieth century, including the New Deal and the Great Society.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blum, John Morton. The Republican Roosevelt. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954.

Cooper, John Milton, Jr. The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983.

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new nationalismnew nationalism is the term used to describe theodore roosevelt's political philosophy that the nation is the best instrument for advancing progressive democracy. in 1910

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former president theodore roosevelt returned from safari to plunge into the 1910 congressional elections.

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NEW NATIONALISMNEW NATIONALISM is the term used to describe Theodore Roosevelt's political philosophy that the nation is the best instrument for advancing progressive democracy. In 1910, former President Theodore Roosevelt returned from safari to plunge into the 1910 congressional elections. Source for information on New Nationalism: Dictionary of American History dictionary.

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ushistory.org/us/43g.asp

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http://www.taxhistory.org/thp/readings.nsf/ArtWeb/C82515A4B6B7A24C85257D1B0041C86E?OpenDocument

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October 3 is the 100th anniversary of the Revenue Act of 1913 and with it, the first federal income tax of the 20th century. The law is often trotted out in tax reform discussions, especially by those convinced that the modern tax regime has strayed from its origins.

"People supported the income tax because it was originally meant to impose only very low tax rates on only the highest incomes," wrote Raymond J. Keating in a 1996 article for The Freeman. "Proponents argued that the 16th amendment to the U.S. Constitution would force the so-called 'robber barons' to pay taxes. It was not supposed to provide a mechanism for Washington to reach into most Americans' pockets." ¹

There's some truth to that argument -- but not much. Assuming that intent is best found among the people doing the intending, there's no reason to assign much normative value to the boundaries of the original law. In 1913 Congress enacted a top rate of 7 percent and a high exemption that spared all but 2 percent of households entirely. But just five years later, the top rate was 11 times higher. Many of the same lawmakers who voted for the light and narrow tax of 1913 also voted for the heavy and much broader tax of 1918.

Still, the 1913 act deserves some scrutiny because many of the arguments surrounding its enactment remain alive today. If nothing else, history can remind us that issues of fiscal fairness were just as nettlesome then as they are now.

A Dangerous Man

President Wilson had some dangerous ideas, at least in the view of many business leaders. As they waited for his inauguration in March 1913, the lords of "financial feudalism" found Wilson's opinion of the tariff especially problematic. ² The president-elect had long maintained that steep import duties shielded business from healthy competition (and, in doing so, promoted monopoly). Wilson also insisted that politics made the tariff "one of the most colossal systems of deliberate patronage that has ever been conceived." ³ Finally, Wilson believed that the tariff was sneaky. "Very few of us taste the tariff in our sugar," he observed. ⁴

Those ideas struck business leaders as distinctly unwholesome. Even more disconcerting, however, was Wilson's new revenue tool that he might use to fix the tariff. The 16th Amendment was ratified just a few weeks before his inauguration, and most observers expected the new president and his congressional allies to move quickly to enact a new tax on individual and corporate income.

And they did. The world moved more slowly in 1913 than it does today, but eight months after Wilson arrived in the Oval Office, he signed the 1913 revenue act into law. Most of the law was devoted to tariff reform, but many observers were fixated on the income tax. "Knocked out of a Democratic tariff bill by the Supreme Court eighteen years ago, thus in the whirligig of time" the tax "comes back from the grave in which it has rested ill and taps again at the door of a Democratic Administration," wrote Angus McSween of the Philadelphia North American.

The new income levy took shape in the House of Representatives, and especially in the office of Rep. Cordell Hull, who provided an early draft. Like many Southern Democrats, Hull was a longtime champion of taxing income, and he sketched out a low, flat-rate levy on a small group of very rich taxpayers.

But some Democrats had other ideas. According to Randolph Paul -- one of the great fiscal historians of the 20th century, as well as a leading Treasury official in the 1940s -- Rep. John Nance Garner led the drive for a graduated rate structure. Hull was reluctant, worried that progressive rates would leave the new tax vulnerable to judicial and political challenges. Eventually, however, he agreed to a modest amount of graduation. Rates in the House bill topped out at 4 percent. ⁵

The House version of the income tax included a $4,000 exemption for both single and married taxpayers -- almost $100,000 in 2013 dollars. Wilson specifically asked Hull to set the exemption high, because he was eager to "burden as small a number of persons (as possible) with the obligations involved in the administration of what will at best be an unpopular law."

After passing the House, the tariff bill moved to the Senate, where left-leaning Democrats and progressive Republicans were intent on raising income tax rates. The Finance Committee resisted those changes, instead focusing on exemption levels. In particular, the panel lowered the exemption to $3,000 for single filers but kept the House's $4,000 figure for married couples. Finance members created a $500 child exemption (with a $1,000 maximum).

When the tariff bill reached the floor, insurgent Democrats and progressive Republicans teamed up to push for higher rates, with some amendments seeking to raise top rates as high as 20 percent. But the bill's Democratic floor manager, Sen. John Sharp Williams, tried to beat back the insurgency. "No honest man can make war upon great fortunes per se," he insisted. "The Democratic Party never has done it; and when the Democratic Party begins to do it, it will cease to be the Democratic Party and become the socialistic party of the United States; or better expressed, the communistic party, or quasi-communistic party, of the United States."

Williams had plenty of support from old-line Republicans like Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, who denounced the "confiscation of property under the guise of taxation." Lodge urged his colleagues not to transform "the imposition of a tax to the pillage of class." ⁶

Democratic leaders and their conservative Republican allies eventually agreed to a compromise with the insurgents. As passed by the Senate, the income tax law featured rates as high as 7 percent -- a long way from 20 percent, to be sure, but also a fair distance from the House's top rate of 4 percent. The Senate's higher rates prevailed in the conference committee, and the tariff bill moved smoothly to final passage. Wilson happily signed it on October 3, and the new income tax (made retroactive to March 1) took effect immediately.

Complaints

Rates and exemptions were not the only contentious aspects of the new tax. As it moved through Congress, critics railed about its complexity. "I guess you will have to go to jail," wrote Sen. Elihu Root to a correspondent. "If that is the result of not understanding the Income Tax law I shall meet you there. We will have a merry, merry time, for all our friends will be there. It will be an intellectual center, for no one understands the Income Tax law except persons who have not sufficient intelligence to understand the questions that arise under it."

Administrative provisions of the law were controversial, especially the requirement that much of the tax be collected at source. Withholding had been used during the Civil War to collect taxes on some kinds of income, but the 1913 act envisioned a more ambitious regime. In particular, the law required withholding on dividend and interest payments paid out by corporations, as well as rent, interest, wages, and salaries paid by both corporations and individuals. (Eventually, critics would win the argument about withholding, persuading lawmakers in 1916 to repeal it. It would not reappear until World War II.)

Another controversial aspect of the law was its geographic incidence. Observers understood that the new levy would fall most heavily on the Northeastern states (as had the Civil War income tax). Yankee lawmakers complained long and hard about that fact, arguing that the law's high exemption was to blame. But Hull, mustering well-rehearsed Southern arguments, insisted that the tax was sectional because "wealth first made itself sectional." In other words, the North paid more because the North had more. "It would be monstrous to say that the receivers of great incomes which are drawn from every section of the country may segregate themselves and on the plea of segregation or sectionalism successfully exempt their entire wealth from taxation," Hull said.

In the Senate, Sen. James Lewis offered an even more vigorous defense of the law's geographic incidence. In response to complaints from Root that New Yorkers would be overpaying, Lewis was openly scornful. "Who are the people of New York for whom the senator is so solicitous?" Lewis asked. "Are they those who breed around Wall Street and flock to the Waldorf-Astoria? Are they those whose names are seldom found on the assessors' lists, but who hover around the Mediterranean in the summer and the islands of the Caribbean in the winter?" ⁷

For his part, Root claimed to support the income tax in principle, but he insisted that the high exemption was dangerous and unfair. "I am in favor of an income tax," he declared. "And I believe in the principle of it. I think it is fair, and I voted for the income tax amendment to the Constitution, and urged it upon my people. I have no fault to find with an income tax or a graded tax, but if you impose too great a tax upon the industrial States you will, to that extent, diminish their taxable resources for State or other local purposes." ⁸

Ultimately, however, if Root had no problem with a graded tax, plenty of other observers did. Editorial critics objected to the high exemption as a form of class legislation. The New York Sun, for instance, called it "taxation of the few for the benefit of the many." And their crosstown colleagues were similarly unhappy. "The aim of the cumulative tax is to take from those who have much for the benefit of those who have little," The New York Times wrote. At the end of the day, such a tax would hurt the rich (and the economy) but do little to help the poor. ⁹

Indeed, The New York Times had succinctly voiced its objections some four years earlier when the 16th Amendment first made its way to the states. "When men once get the habit of helping themselves to the property of others, they are not easily cured of it," the paper warned. ¹⁰

Misplaced Nostalgia

The 1913 debate over rates and exemptions did nothing to resolve those contentious issues. Indeed, they have remained at the center of most political tax debates ever since. And as modern politicians wrangle over tax reform, many point nostalgically to the low, narrow tax of 1913 as some sort of object lesson. In a 2011 presidential debate, for instance, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., eagerly observed that "when we got the income tax in 1913, the top rate was 7 percent. By 1980, the top rate was 70 percent."

True enough. But, in fact, the rate had reached 77 percent by 1918, just five years after Congress created its first, single-digit levy. World War I explains the rapid escalation in rates, of course. But the willingness of lawmakers to transform the income tax in the face of national emergency tells us something about the way they viewed that tax in the first place. After all, lawmakers had other revenue options.

But the income tax had several virtues. To begin with, it was already on the books, and its administrative machinery, while embryonic, was at least operational. That couldn't be said for most alternatives, including any form of broad-based consumption tax (other than the tariff, which was a poor revenue tool in wartime).

But almost as important, the income tax struck many wartime lawmakers as fair. Which is no surprise, because many of those same lawmakers had voted for the tax -- and endorsed its fairness claims -- just five years before. The low taxers of 1913 were the high taxers of 1918. Necessity may have forced their hand during the wartime emergency, but lawmakers of the late 1910s were not somehow wed to the notion of low-rate income taxes. If the legislative majority was wed to anything, it was to the essential fairness of taxing income. And to taxing it progressively.

¹ Raymond J. Keating, "Original Intent and the Income Tax," The Freeman, Feb. 1, 1996, available at http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/original-intent-and-the-income-tax#ixzz2g0q7i9Gg.

² Randolph E. Paul, Taxation in the United States (Boston: Little Brown, 1954), at 99. Unless otherwise cited, all quotations from political and journalistic sources are drawn from Paul's magisterial -- but maddeningly unfootnoted -- chronicle of the law's development.

³ "Wilson Hits Tariff and the Third Party," The New York Times, Sept. 10, 1912, available at http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F00C1FFB3A5E13738DDDA90994D1405B828DF1D3.

⁴ Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1900), available at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35861/35861-h/35861-h.htm.

⁵ Sidney Ratner, Taxation and Democracy in America (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1967), at 325-326.

⁷ "Lewis Clashes With Root," Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922) Sept. 3, 1913, at 5.

⁸ "Root Wants to Tax Small Incomes, Too," The New York Times, Sept. 3, 1913, at 11.

⁹ "Anti-Wealth Policy," The New York Times, Sept. 3, 1913, at 6.

¹⁰ "An Unnecessary Amendment," The New York Times, July 8, 1909.

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Tax History Project -- Tax History -- Original Intent and the Revenue Act of 1913

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October 3 is the 100th anniversary of the Revenue Act of 1913 and with it, the first federal income tax of the 20th century. The law is often trotted out in tax reform discussions, especially by those convinced that the modern tax regime has strayed from its origins.

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https://www.britannica.com/event/Clayton-Antitrust-Act

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Clayton Antitrust Act | United States [1914]

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Clayton Antitrust Act: Clayton Antitrust Act, law enacted in 1914 by the United States Congress to clarify and strengthen the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890). The vague language of the latter had provided large corporations with numerous loopholes, enabling them to engage in certain restrictive business arrangements that,

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https://apprend.io/apush/period-6/the-sherman-anti-trust-act/#:~:text=Trusts%20were%20a%20business%20structure,a%20single%20board%20of%20trustees.&text=Thus%2C%20trusts%20gave%20the%20illusion,they%20were%20controlled%20as%20one.

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The Sherman Antitrust Act for APUSH About the Author: Warren Hierl taught Advanced Placement U.S. History for twenty-eight years. He has conducted 250+ AP US History workshops for teachers. He was a member of the committee that wrote the original Advanced Placement

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https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/federal-income-tax-1913

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Although the modern income tax emerged in 1913, it pales in comparison to the Internal Revenue Code in effect at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Because of a generous $3,000 exemption, plus an additional $1,000 exemption for married couples, the tax applied to fewer than four percent of the population. Even for those it affected, the impact was relatively mild. The act levied a tax of one percent on all incomes above the exemption with additional surtax rates imposed for progressively higher incomes. Those surtax rates started at one percent for those making $20,000 or more and topped out at a mere six percent on incomes in excess of $500,000. Given such a limited taxpayer base and low rates, it is not surprising that the income tax had only a minor role in the federal revenue system during its infancy. In its first year in operation, it was responsible for raising less than 10 percent of federal revenues. By contrast, the income tax accounted for 45 percent of federal revenues in 1950 and nearly 73 percent in 1985. The 1913 version of the income tax did not even merit its own act; rather, it was adopted as part of the Underwood/Simmons Tariff Act of 1913. Despite the income tax's relatively minor role, even contemporary observers recognized its larger significance. It marked the beginning of a transformation from taxation based upon the need to consume to taxation based upon the ability to pay. It also provided the vehicle for a rapid expansion of the federal government over the next thirty years.

EARLY HISTORY OF THE INCOME TAX

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the United States relied primarily on taxes levied on products manufactured in the United States ( excise taxes) or imported into the country from elsewhere (tariffs) for the bulk of federal revenues. Two notable problems resulted from this heavy reliance on what are called consumption taxes. First, the revenue from tariffs was easily disrupted when trade fell. Second, both types of taxes were typically passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, and this disproportionately impacted the poor. Both of these problems with the consumption-based tax system led to consideration of an income tax during the nineteenth century.

When the War of 1812 began, the federal government doubled the customs duties it had been using to raise the majority of its revenues. As a drop in trade caused these sums to dwindle and the national debt to increase, Alexander Dallas, Thomas Jefferson's Secretary of the Treasury, sought alternative sources of revenue. Dallas turned first to internal revenues from excise and property taxes before deciding to push forward with proposals for income and inheritance taxes. Although these latter proposals were raised too late to secure passage, the war had exposed the vulnerability of a tariff-based system.

During the Civil War (186165), Congress could no longer avoid the income tax. Imports were on the decline in part because of a drop in demand after the Panic of 1857, a severe recession that began with the discovery of a Wall Street embezzlement scheme and an ensuing run on the banks. Moreover, Abraham Lincoln assumed the presidency in March of 1861 with a pre-war debt of almost $75 million. The onset of war, with its accompanying naval blockades and other economic dislocation, only exacerbated this situation. Thus, in 1862 Congress adopted an income tax. Not only was it the country's first income tax, but it was the first use of graduated rates, or rates that increased progressively with the rise in a taxpayer's income. Some contend that the progressive rates were intended merely to raise more revenue, rather than to redistribute wealth, but it is enough to say that they helped shift some of the revenue-raising burden from the poor to the rich. After the war ended, the economy began to improve, prices fell, and budget surpluses replaced deficits. In the face of growing opposition to what the New York Tribune called "the most odious, vexatious, inquisitorial, and unequal of all of our taxes," the income tax was repealed in 1872.

A CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE TO THE INCOME TAX

The income tax issue continued to simmer during the 1870s and 1880s, but a number of influences converged to make it a reality in 1894. Great fortunes were amassed during the high prosperity and protectionism of the 1880s. This focused attention back to the inequities of the tariff system during the election of Democrat Grover Cleveland in 1892. Coupled with the popular and economic unrest resulting from the Panic of 1893a depression in which the stock market collapsedthousands of businesses went bankrupt, million of people were left jobless, and the national income dropped ten percent. Congress once again adopted an income tax as part of the Tariff Act of 1894. Although the rates were flat rather than graduated as in the Civil War version, the goal was more clearly to redress inequity than in the early experiment with an income tax.

The 1894 income tax was never actually implemented because of a judicial challenge. Although the Supreme Court had upheld the Civil War version in Springer v. United States (1880), two shareholder suits were soon filed to prevent their respective corporations from paying the 1894 act's income tax. In the case that followed, Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co. (1895), the Supreme Court struck down the income tax as unconstitutional. According to the Court, the income tax was a direct tax under Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution, and therefore must be levied "in proportion to the Census or Enumeration." Since the income tax would be collected at a uniform national rate on the basis of income rather than population, the Court found it to be an unapportioned direct tax.

THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT

With the Court's decision to strike down the income tax as unconstitutional, Congress once again turned to the tariff. Republicans had blamed the Panic of 1893 on Cleveland's tariff reform efforts. They regained control of both houses of Congress during the midterm elections of 1894 and the presidency in 1896 with the election of William McKinley on a platform of protectionism. Armed with this mandate, Republicans passed the highly protective Dingley Tariff Act in 1897.

The Republicans' push for high tariff rates came back to haunt them when prices rose over the next decade. While there is only mixed evidence that the tariff was responsible for this inflation, Democrats took advantage of the public's perception of a link between tariffs and high prices in order to bolster their anti-tariff, pro-income tax stance. The Panic of 1907, with its ensuing economic instability, furthered this cause. By the 1908 elections, both parties pledged their support for tariff reform. Presidential candidates William Jennings Bryan and William Howard Taft each expressed their support for an income tax; Taft, the eventual winner, declared in his acceptance speech that it was both constitutionally permissible and potentially desirable to have an income tax under circumstances of dire need.

On March 4, 1909, Taft formally called a special session of Congress to discuss the issue of tariff reform. This contentious session illustrated the political breakdown that had developed over the subject. While Republicans ostensibly dominated both houses of Congress, a rift was growing in their ranks. Regular Republicans adhered to the traditional party dogma of protectionism. A small but significant group of Republicans, however, were straying from this stance. Known as "Insurgents," this group of primarily western representatives and senators were opposed to favoritism toward big business. They sought a scientifically drawn tariff, which would provide protection for certain deserving industries, supplemented by an income tax designed to add a measure of tax equity. Given this changing political landscape, Republicans had to take seriously calls for an income tax during the 1909 special session.

In an attempt to forestall income tax proposals supported by a coalition of Democrats and Insurgents, regular Republicans, led by Senator Nelson Aldrich and Representative Sereno Payne, both of New York, managed to secure a compromise. They agreed to submit a constitutional amendment to the states that would allow Congress to levy a tax upon incomes. At the same time, they enacted an excise tax on corporate income in part to offset revenue lost through tariff revision. The resulting Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act, enacted on August 5, 1909, delayed the income tax, but fell far short of the fundamental reform of the tariff system that had led to the special session.

This failure of tariff reform helped fuel efforts toward ratification of the constitutional amendment for an income tax. Prior to 1910, two-thirds of the states had not even considered the proposed amendment. During the 1910 elections, however, Democrats and Insurgents rode a wave of anti-tariff sentiment to victories at both the state and federal levels. The following year, income tax supporters secured passage of the constitutional amendment in all but eight of the states necessary for ratification. Although there was a subsequent delay because most state legislatures only met every other year, ratification was achieved when Delaware voted to accept the amendment on February 3, 1913. Under what became the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, "[T]he Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on income, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any Census or Enumeration."

INCOME TAX OF 1913

In his inaugural address in March 1913, newly elected Democratic President Woodrow Wilson quickly took advantage of the new amendment by calling for tariff reduction and the adoption of an income tax. Within a month, during an emergency session of Congress, House Ways and Means Chair Oscar Underwood, a Democrat from Alabama, introduced a tariff reform bill that provided for an income tax with progressive rates. Underwood and the income tax section's principal drafter, Representative Cordell Hull of Tennessee, had originally sought to introduce a flat rate income tax to ensure judicial approval, but pressure from other Democrats, including future Vice-President John Nance Garner of Texas, led them to opt for the graduated rates.

The ensuing debates over the income tax primarily centered on the rate and exemption amount for an income tax, rather than the propriety of the income tax itself. Regular Republicans pushed for flatter rates and lower exemptions. Since they did not concede that the tariff was itself a tax, they viewed any exemption to the income tax to be class legislation and, in the words of Michigan Senator Charles E. Townsend, a "danger to the Republic." When combined with progressive rates, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts argued, the exemption would "set a class apart and say they are to be pillaged, their property is to be confiscated."

Insurgents and members of the newer Progressive party saw the income tax very differently from regular Republicans. They advocated steeply progressive rates as a method of redistributing wealth. In the most extreme example, Representative Ira Copley proposed an income tax with a top marginal rate of 68 percent on incomes exceeding one million dollars. Others, such as Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin, proposed rates as high as 11 percent to reach what he called the "menace" of "great accumulation of wealth."

Standing between these two extremes were the Democrats, who proposed a more mild progression of rates to offset the burden of tariff taxes on the poor. Senator John Sharp Williams from Mississippi, one of the Democratic caucus's spokesmen in the Senate, rebuked the Insurgent and Progressive position by stating "[n]o honest man can make war upon great fortunes per se.... I am not going to make this tariff bill a great panacea for all the inequalities of fortune existing in this country." Nevertheless, he recognized that a modicum of progressivity, accompanied by a high exemption, was necessary as long as tariff taxes remained in place. According to Williams, the regular Republicans' plea for flat rates and low exemptions should be left for "when the good day comesthe golden daywhen there will be no taxes upon consumption at all."

The Democrats' position carried the day. The Underwood/Simmons Tariff Act, which went into effect on October 3, 1913, levied an income tax that imposed mildly progressive rates and was accompanied by a healthy exemption. The graduated rate feature was later challenged, but the Supreme Court upheld it in Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R. Co. (1916) on the ground that it did not "transcend the conception of all taxation" so as "to be a mere arbitrary abuse of power."

Although the income tax act of 1913 instituted only mild progressivity and raised a relatively small amount, it was still a monumental development. It began the process of converting the tax system from a regressive consumption-based system to a system that levied taxes based on the ability to pay. Moreover, it offered the vehicle for a rapid expansion of the tax system during World War I (19141918) when consumption taxes proved inadequate. It was not until World War II (193945), however, when Congress permitted payroll deduction and a significant cut in the exemption, that the income tax truly became a tax for all people. Nevertheless, it was in the income tax act of 1913 that the seeds were planted for this development.

See also: Corporate Income Tax act of 1909; estate and Gift Taxation; Tax Reform act of 1986; Taxpayer bill of Rights III.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brownlee, W. Elliot. Federal Taxation in America: A Short History. New York: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and University of Cambridge Press, 1996.

Buenker, John D. The Income Tax and the Progressive Era. New York: Garland, 1985.

Ratner, Sidney. Taxation and Democracy in America. New York: W.W. Norton, 1967.

Roberts, Paul C., and Lawrence M. Stratton, " The Roots of the Income Tax." National Review (April 17, 1995): 42.

Stanley, Robert. Dimensions of Law in the Service of Order: Origins of the Federal Income Tax 1861-1913. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Waltman, Jerold L. Political Origins of the U.S. Income Tax. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1985.

Weisman, Steven R. The Great Tax Wars. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.

The Tax Protest Movement

Tax protesters differ from run-of-the-mill tax evaders in that protesters feel that they have a moral, ethical, or legal right to avoid paying taxes. The first organized tax protest movements began to emerge during the 1950s and 1960s. Protesters on the Left refused to pay taxes that would support the war in Vietnam and other aspects of American foreign policy they considered unjust or immoral. Protesters on the right felt that income taxes were unfair because of their progressive nature, resented being coerced into giving up income, and found the withholding process intrusive. In 1957 Congressman Elmer Hoffman of Illinois proposed an amendment calling for the abolition of income taxes; since then, the so-called Liberty Amendment has been reintroduced repeatedly, but with no success. During the 1970s the tax protest movement grew more radical, with protesters on the far Right taking the lead, and the movement came to be associated with anti-government organizations that have harassed and even killed government and law enforcement officials and burned or bombed government facilities.

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federal income tax of 1913
steven a. bank

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Although the modern income tax emerged in 1913, it pales in comparison to the Internal Revenue Code in effect at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Because of a generous $3,000 exemption, plus an additional $1,000 exemption for married couples, the tax applied to fewer than four percent of the population.

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Contents

1. Taft's Early Life and Career

2. Taft's Path to the White House

3. The Taft Presidency

4. Taft's Post-Presidency and Supreme Court Career

The Republican William Howard Taft worked as a judge in Ohio Superior Court and in the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals before accepting a post as the first civilian governor of the Philippines in 1900. In 1904, Taft took on the role of secretary of war in the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, who threw his support to the Ohioan as his successor in 1908. Generally more conservative than Roosevelt, Taft also lacked his expansive view of presidential power, and was generally a more successful administrator than politician. By 1912, Roosevelt, dissatisfied with Taft's presidency, had formed his own Progressive Party, splitting Republican voters and handing the White House to the Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Nine years after leaving office, Taft achieved his lifelong goal when President Warren Harding appointed him chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; he held that post until just before his death in 1930.

Taft's Early Life and Career

William Howard Taft was born on September 15, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father was Alphonso Taft, a prominent Republican attorney who served as secretary of war and attorney general under President Ulysses S. Grant, then ambassador to Austria-Hungary and Russia under President Chester A. Arthur. The younger Taft attended Yale University (graduating second in his class) before studying law at the University of Cincinnati. He was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1880 and entered private practice. In 1886, Taft married Helen "Nettie" Herron, the daughter of another prominent local lawyer and Republican Party activist; the couple would have three children.

From early in his career, Taft aspired to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. His ambitious wife, meanwhile, set her sights on becoming first lady. With her encouragement, Taft accepted several political appointments, beginning in 1887 when he was named to fill the term of a judge in Ohio Superior Court. He was elected to a five-year term himself the following year. (Other than the presidency, it would be the only office Taft ever obtained through a popular vote.) In 1890, he was appointed as U.S. solicitor general, the third-highest position in the justice department. Two years later, he began serving as a judge on the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which had jurisdiction over Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee and Kentucky.

Taft's Path to the White House

In early 1900, President William McKinley called Taft to Washington and tasked him with setting up a civilian government in the Philippines, which had become a U.S. protectorate after the Spanish-American War (1898). Though hesitant, Taft accepted the post of chairman of the Second Philippine Commission with the knowledge that it would position him well to advance further in national government. Taft's sympathetic administration in the Philippines marked a dramatic departure from the brutal tactics used there by the U.S. military government since 1898. Beginning with the drafting of a new constitution (including a Bill of Rights similar to that of the United States) and the creation of the post of civilian governor (he became the first), Taft improved the island economy and infrastructure and allowed the people at least some voice in government. Though sympathetic to the Filipino people and popular among them, he believed they needed considerable guidance and instruction before they could be capable of self-rule, and predicted a long period of U.S. involvement; in fact, the Philippines would not gain independence until 1946.

After McKinley was assassinated in 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt twice offered Taft a Supreme Court appointment, but he declined in order to stay in the Philippines. In 1904, he agreed to return and become Roosevelt's secretary of war, as long as he retained supervision of Filipino affairs. Taft traveled extensively during his four years in this post, including overseeing the construction of the Panama Canal and serving as provisional governor of Cuba. Roosevelt, who had pledged not to run for a third term in office, began promoting Taft as his successor. Though he disliked campaigning, Taft agreed to mount a presidential run in 1908 at the urging of his wife, and soundly defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan by pledging to continue the Rooseveltian program of progressive reforms.

The Taft Presidency

Despite his pledge, Taft lacked Roosevelt's expansive view of presidential power, as well as his charisma as a leader and his physical vigor. (Always heavy, Taft weighed as much as 300 pounds at times during his presidency.) Though he was initially active in "trust-busting," initiating some 80 antitrust suits against large industrial combinations-twice as many as Roosevelt-he later backed away from these efforts, and in general aligned himself with the more conservative members of the Republican Party. In 1909, Taft's convention of a special session of Congress to debate tariff reform legislation spurred the Republican protectionist majority to action and led to passage of the Payne-Aldrich Act, which did little to lower tariffs. Though more progressive Republicans (such as Roosevelt) expected Taft to veto the bill, he signed it into law and publicly defended it as "the best tariff bill that the Republican Party ever passed."

In another key misstep where progressives were concerned, Taft upheld the policies of Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger, and dismissed Ballinger's leading critic, Gifford Pinchot, a conservationist and close friend of Roosevelt who served as head of the Bureau of Forestry. Pinchot's firing split the Republican Party further and estranged Taft from Roosevelt for good. Often overlooked in the record of Taft's presidency were his achievements, including his trust-busting efforts, his empowering of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to set railroad rates, and his support of constitutional amendments mandating a federal income tax and the direct election of senators by the people (as opposed to appointment by state legislatures).

Taft's Post-Presidency and Supreme Court Career

By 1912, Roosevelt was so incensed with Taft and the conservative Republicans that he chose to break from the party and form his own Progressive Party (also known as the Bull Moose Party). In the general election that year, the divide among Republicans handed the White House to the progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who received 435 electoral votes to Roosevelt's 88. Taft received only eight electoral votes, reflecting the repudiation of his administration's policies in the wave of progressive spirit that was then sweeping the nation.

Undoubtedly relieved to be leaving the White House, Taft took a position teaching constitutional law at Yale University Law School. In 1921, President Warren Harding fulfilled Taft's lifelong dream by appointing him chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. In that post, Taft improved the organization and efficiency of the nation's highest court and helped secure passage of the Judge's Act of 1925, which gave the court greater discretion in choosing its cases. He wrote some 250 decisions, most reflecting his conservative ideology. Taft's most prominent opinion came in Myers v. United States (1926), which invalidated tenure of office acts limiting the president's authority to remove federal officials; President Andrew Johnson's violation of a similar act had led to his impeachment by the House of Representatives in 1868. Taft remained chief justice until shortly before his death, on March 8, 1930, from complications of heart disease.

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PHOTO GALLERIES

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Taft's Early Life and Career Taft's Path to the White House The Taft Presidency Taft's Post-Presidency and Supreme Court Career The Republican William Howard Taft worked as a judge in Ohio Superior Court and in the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals before accepting a post as the first civilian governor of the Philippines in 1900.

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The division of the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor by Taft continues to promote economic growth and ensures the health and safety of US workers.

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-The Payne Aldrich Tariff Act had insufficient reductions in tariffs rates as promised by Taft.
-The debate over the Payne Aldrich Tariff Act split the Republican Party into Progressives and Old Guards.
-Taft's dismissal of Gifford Pinchot, chief forester of the United States, led to a divide between Taft and Roosevelt supporters, further separating the Republican party.

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Roosevelt came into office rather abruptly with goals of:
1. Expanding executive power
2. Modernization and reform of federal government
3. Reduce monopolies and civil service reforms

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New Nationalism was the previous president, Roosevelt's, campaign platform, that Taft carried over and upheld throughout his presidency. New Nationalism had goals to evaluate and support the ICC to set railroad rates, create a graduated income tax, reform banking system, and labor legislation. Taft also supported the idea of senators elected by the people and made many trust-busting efforts. Seeing as though Taft was always more of an administrator than a politician, and had a very uncomfortable 4 years in office, his main lifelong dream was to be a Chief Justice on the Supreme Court, which he accomplished after his presidency.

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https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/theodore-roosevelt/

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With the assassination of President William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, not quite 43, became the 26th and youngest President in the Nation’s history (1901-1909). He brought new excitement and power to the office, vigorously leading Congress and the American public toward progressive reforms and a…

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While Taft was in office, no great scandal or corruption occured, the first tariff revision since 1897 passed, the placing of conservation on a legal basis occured, improvement of railroad regulation, and an antitrust crusade were all succesful. One thing Taft is most well known for is the Creation of the Children's Bureau in 1912. Taft signed into law a bill creating the new federal government organization to focus on the welfare of children in all classes of society. This bureau worked to end child labor and overall used funds to help improve the lives of children. Taft also was credited with the building of most of the Panama Canal and, the passage of more than fifty minor progressive acts and his other most progressive actions was adding two amendments to the Constitution. The 16th amendment was passed in 1909 and ratified in 1913, and it gave Congress the power to create income taxes. The 17th amendment provided for the direct election of US Senators by voters in each state. He also had peacefully settled a number of international disputes, launched the most ambitious attempt yet made to obtain world peace, and steadily maintained a policy of neutrality toward Mexico.

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https://www.ssa.gov/history/childb1.html

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Underwood-Simmons Act of 1913- the act reduced tariffs. More importantly, income tax was introduced. Taxes were set at graduated rates. The taxes started with 1% with a $3,000 income, and they only went up to 6% with incomes above $500,000. Overall, the tax only affected about 5% of the population and gathered 10% of government revenue.
Federal Reserve Act of 1913- he created the Federal Reserve Banking, a central banking system. The Panic of 1907, where stocks fell 50%, drove many to believe America needed something more stable. America's currency became more flexible and was no longer tied to the gold standard.
Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914-  a trust is where stockholders in several companies transferred their shares to a single board of trustees. The board of trustees can control several companies at once. Trusts allowed monopolizing a market and forcing other competitors out of business to be very easy. Wilson saw this and determined that all trusts were dangerous. Therefore, he revised the Sherman Act of 1890 and made practices that lead to monopolies illegal.

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New Freedom was Woodrow Wilson's platform for change. He envisioned an agrarian America like Thomas Jefferson. His goals were to attack tariffs, banks, and trusts which helped industrialists at the expense of farmers.

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Teddy was the 26th president of the United States following the death of President McKinley. He served two terms from 1901-1909. He was a member of the Republican Party

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Woodrow Wilson served as 28th president as a member of the Democratic Party.

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William Taft was the 27th president of the United States and the 10th Chief Justice. Taft was a member of the Republican party and served 1 term between the years of 1909-1913.

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The Federal Reserve System continues to be the central bank of America.

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-Tariffs helped industrialist while hurting smaller businesses and charging citizens more
-The government was poor. The revenue from tariffs relied too much on the current market and fluctuated.
-Instability in currency. The gold standard was making cash to tight
-Monopolies were still present despite being illegal. Industrialist found loopholes and still used business practices that caused monopolies.