Taft and Wilson
Continuing the Progressive Plan
William Howard Taft
Part One
Taft Becomes President• TR’s Secretary of
War• Hand-picked• Far less popular• More cautious• Wanted to
continue TR’s Progressivism
• Difficulty with Conservatives
Taft’s Record• 90 Anti-Trust cases (more
than TR!)• Standard Oil busted• Set aside more public
lands than TR• Income Tax• But…supported higher
tariffs (Payne-Aldrich tariff)—alienated progressives
• And…fired US Forest service head after he criticized Sec. of Interior
1912 Election
Friends Again!
Part Two
Woodrow Wilson
Wilson’s Legacy• Lowered tariffs (good for
consumers—cheap foreign goods)
• Federal Reserve Act (we’ll talk about this later)
• Federal Trade Commission (truth in advertising & labels; monitored businesses—no monopolies)
• Clayton Act (further defined what an illegal trust was; unions were NOT)
• Worker’s compensation law
Legacy of Progressivism
• Lots of changes—used government to cure society’s ills
• Status of Women changed• Workers’ lives improved• Ignored race issue (Wilson—
segregated the Federal Government)
• World War I ended the Progressive Era