NOTES:
ROOSEVELT VS. TAFT VS.
WILSON
SMACKDOWN!
WHO WILL WIN?
EQ: HOW WELL DID PRESIDENTS ROOSEVELT,
TAFT, AND WILSON PROMOTE PROGRESSIVE
GOALS IN NATIONAL POLICIES?
1. ROOSEVELT
• Plan called “Square
Deal”
• Believed there were
“good trusts” and “bad
trusts”
• Used the Sherman AntiTrust Act to break up
about 40
trusts/monopolies
Taft’s Presidency
• Roosevelt did not
run in 1908 as
promised and
chose his Secretary
of War, William
Howard Taft, to be
his Republican
successor.
2. TAFT
• Quiet and cautious, Taft said “When I am
addressed as ‘Mr. President,’ I turn to see
whether you are at my elbow.”
• Brought more than 90 lawsuits against trusts
• Payne-Aldrich Tariff angered Progressives
• Called for reform of banking system
• 16th Amendment created a federal
income tax
• 17th Amendment – direct election of
senators
THE RETURN OF THE ANIMAL
LOVER/KILLER
• Roosevelt returns
from Africa to run
for president as a
Republican in 1912,
but Taft wins the
nomination. So
Roosevelt forms a
new Progressive
Party, aka the Bull
Moose Party.
ELECTION OF 1912
Election of 1912
Candidates
Party
Electoral
Vote
Popular
Vote
T. Woodrow Wilson (NJ)
Thomas R. Marshall (IN)
Democratic
435
6,293,152
Theodore Roosevelt (NY)
Hiram W. Johnson (CA)
Progressive
88
4,119,207
William H. Taft (OH)
James S. Sherman (NY)
Nicholas M. Butler (NY)
Republican
8
3,486,333
Socialist
0
900,369
Prohibition
0
207,972
Eugene V. Debs (IN)
Emil Seidel (WI)
Eugene W. Chafin (IL)
Aaron S. Watkins (OH)
3. WILSON
• Idealist and scholar
• “New Freedom” plan gave more
economic freedom to small businesses
and “regular folk”
• Clayton Antitrust Act – allowed unions
to form
• Keating-Owen Child Labor Act
• Federal Reserve System stabilized
banking system
• 18th Amendment – Prohibition ratified
• Supported women’s suffrage, 19th
Amendment ratified