This Eras Three US Presidents - Essay Example

Despite his caution, Roosevelt managed to do enough in his first three years in office to build a platform for election in his own right. In 1902 he cajoled Republican conservatives into creating the Bureau of Corporations with the power to investigate businesses engaged in interstate commerce but without regulatory powers. He also resurrected the nearly defunct Sherman Antitrust Act by bringing a successful suit to break up a huge railroad conglomerate, the Northern Securities Company. Roosevelt pursued this policy of “trust-busting” by initiating suits against 43 other major corporations during the next seven years.

Also in 1902, Roosevelt intervened in the anthracite coal strike when it threatened to cut off heating fuel for homes, schools, and hospitals. This was the first time that a president had publicly intervened in a labour dispute at least implicitly on the side of workers. Roosevelt characterized his actions as striving toward a “Square Deal” between capital and labour. Roosevelt's boldest actions came in the area of natural resources. At his urging, Congress created the Forest Service (1905) to manage government-owned forest reserves (Encyclopedia Britannica Online).

William Howard Taft became President after Roosevelt. While agreeing with the overall policies of the Roosevelt administration, Taft felt that the power of the Presidency had been extended too far by the previous administration. Taft exerted his power to a much lesser degree. Often that was deemed by the progressive Roosevelt supporters as an abandonment of principles. Thus a major rift developed in the Republican Party. During his long government career, he served as Governor of the Philippines, Secretary of War, President of the United States and Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He is the only man in U.S. history to have been both President and Chief Justice. Taft was committed to lowering tariffs, and when elected, he called Congress into a special session to this end. Congress succeeded in reducing the average tariff from 46 to 41 percent. However, special interest groups managed to raise the tariff on several items.

Taft was an avid enforcer of the anti-trust policies of the Roosevelt administration. He repeatedly instituted the number of anti-trust suits brought against monopolist corporations. During his term of office, two of the biggest monopolies were broken - Standard Oil Company and the American Tobacco Company. Under Taft, the federal government for the first time began the regulation of the telephone and telegraph industries. The government also obtained the authority to fix interstate commerce rates. Taft maintained an activist approach to foreign policy. On one hand, he was the initiator of what became known as Dollar Diplomacy, in which the United States used its military might to promote American business interests abroad. Taft defended his Dollar Diplomacy as an extension of the Monroe Doctrine. Taft was a major supporter of arbitration as the most viable method of settling international disputes (History Central).

The most visible legacy of Taft's Chief Justiceship is the Supreme Court Building, for which he lobbied. As Chief Justice, Taft's tenure was marked by hard work and by efforts for judicial reform. Taft was concerned about the delay and inefficiency in the federal court system. His first task was to secure the passage of The Judges Act in 1922. The act was the first major reform of the federal judiciary since 1789. It gave the Chief Justice more power over the federal courts-Taft used it to reduce delay and streamline operations. Most legal scholars rate Taft as a good, if conservative, Chief Justice. He would usually side with "property rights" over labor and government power over civil rights. These views were generally shared by his colleagues on the court at the time (Painter).

Thomas Woodrow Wilson 28th president of the United States was an American scholar and statesman best remembered for his legislative accomplishments and his high-minded idealism. Wilson led his country into World War I and became the creator and leading advocate of the League of Nations, for which he was awarded the 1919 Nobel Prize for Peace. Wilson was the only professional academic to become president. He began his career teaching history and political science. The presidency offered Wilson his supreme chance to put his ideas about government to work. Admitting that he intended to conduct himself as a prime minister, he drew up a legislative program in advance, broke with previous presidential practice by appearing before Congress in person, and worked mainly through his party. During his second term the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote, was passed and ratified.

He won his first victory with the passage of the Underwood-Simmons Tariff, which reduced duties on imports for the first time in 40 years. Accompanying the new tariff, to offset lost revenues, was an income tax, which was permitted under the recently adopted Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Wilson's second victory came when, after months of complicated debate and bargaining over banking and currency reform, Congress passed the act creating the Federal Reserve System, which remains the most powerful government agency in economic affairs. A third victory came with the passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act, which strengthened existing laws against anticompetitive business actions and gave labour unions relief from court injunctions. Accompanying this act was one creating the Federal Trade Commission, which remains a major agency overseeing business practices (Encyclopedia Britannica Online).