form. The Taft Administration had an uneven record in international relations. "Taft far more than Roosevelt, gave vigorous encouragement to foreign trade" (Anderson 201). "Dollar diplomacy," as promoted by Secretary of State Philander C. Knox, had just the opposite purpose. To Knox, it meant the use of trade and commerce to increase a nation's diplomatic influence. Taft himself stated dollar diplomacy was simply, "'substituting dollars for bullets'"(Anderson 204). The United States made loans to China, Nicaragua, Honduras, and other countries in order to encourage investments by bankers in loans to these nations. Taft ended the second American occupation of Cuba in 1909 and negotiated treaties of arbitration with Britain and France. These treaties ranked as landmarks in the effort of nations to settle their differences peacefully, but the Senate rejected them.His achievements in the White House may have been a little more reliable. The administration included the first scientific investigation of tariff rates, for which the President established the Tariff Board. Taft took the first steps toward establishing a federal budget by asking his Cabinet members and their staffs to submit detailed reports of their financial needs. Congress created the Postal Savings System in 1910 and parcel post in 1913. At Taft's request, Congress also organized a commerce court and enlarged the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The President pushed a bill through Congress requiring that campaign expenses in federal elections be made public. "During Taft's Administration the Department of Commerce and Labor, created under Roosevelt in 1903, was divided into two departments; the Federal Children's Bureau was established; Arizona and New Mexico were admitted to statehood; the Sixteenth Amendment (Income Tax) was passed; and the Seventeenth Amendment enacting a reform long desired by Populists and progressive Republicans, the direct elec...
