Wichersham brought44 indictments in anti-trust suites. Taft was successful in healing the Republican split between conservatives and progressives over such issues as tariff reform, conservation, and the almost dictatorial pwer held by Republican Speaker of the House, Joseph Cannon. Taft’s inability to bring both wings of the party together led to the hardened division which would bring about a Democratic victory in the 1912 elections. In 1910, Republican progressives joined with Democrats to strip Speaker Cannon of his pwer to appoint the Committee on Rules and serve on it himself. Although critical of Cannon, Taft failed to align himself with theprogressives. Also, another event pushing the greater split in the Republican party was the Ballinger-Pinchot Disputes (1909-1910). Progressives backed Gifford Pinchot, chief of the U.S. Forest Service, in his charge that theconservative Secretary of the Interior, Richard Ballinger, was giving away the nation’s natural resources to private corporate interests. A congressional investigatory committee found that Ballinger had done nothing illegal, but did actin a manner contrary to the government’s environmental policies. Taft had supported Ballinger through the controversy, but negative public opinion forced Ballinger to resign in 1911. Taft’s political standing with progressiveRepublicans hurt the election of 1912. Taft promoted the idea of a nation budgetary system. In 1909, Congress passed a graduated income tax amendment to the Constitution which was ratified in 1913. Also, Progressivesgenerally considered high tariffs to be a major cause for the decline of competition and the rise of “bad” trusts. Taft had campaigned for a “sizable reduction.” However, Taft was won over by the conservative Republican bloc and gave his approval for the protectionist Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909, which favored eastern industry. From this faction between fe...
