Replies

Saw some of Part 2. It's actually pretty impressive. Fine old films of McKinley's funeral and other events. And the presentation is quite nuanced, judging from the presentation of TR, race and Booker T. Washington. The present day color footage is mostly of the White House and fits in better with the old stuff. Richard Dreyfuss is still hard to get used to, though. But to characterize one unique individual with his own recognizable manner of expression, who better than another of the same sort? The talking heads do contribute a lot. So it looks like it's definitely worth seeing. I'll get back to you, if I ever manage to see the whole thing. The Video or DVD will probably turn up in public libraries soon enough.

It was a bit ironic watching though. A hundred years later, Morgan's Northern Securities dream has pretty much become a reality -- though a giant railway merger is far less frightening today than it once was. The contemporary parallel would be something like a merger of Microsoft, Intel, IBM and Apple. And the mine workers won their fight, but where are they now? Many of the towns they lived in no longer exist. The same sort of battles are still going on now, but railroads and coal don't matter much any more. The centers of economic dynamism have moved on and the "commanding heights" of the economy are elsewhere.

BTW, I heard the author of a new book, The Great Tax Wars on the radio. He said Taft never expected the income tax amendment to be ratified. The amendment was one of those things that get passed because politicians know the votes aren't there to put it into effect. It was the Republican interparty conflict and the Democratic sweep of 1910 that ensured sufficient ratifications and made the Amendment part of the law of the land. Is this true? It looks like a foolish move on Taft's part. He also said that the 1918 elections were the first federal income tax revolt. Disgust with Wilson's high income tax rates brought Republicans back to Congress and doomed the League of Nations and the Versailles Treaty. I suspect it was more Wilson's own mistakes that ruined his plans.

Thanks for the notes on the series. I'll watch it.

Your comments about Northern Securities is dead on. The influence and general meaning of the railroads to that day cannot be underestimated. Still, there was Standard Oil, there was U.S. Steel... the bad trust, and the good trust, in Roosevelt's terms. These were a greater magnitude than Northern Securities. The difference was that Northern Securities fell more directly under Federal law. Even Mark Hanna warned Morgan's people, before the merger, that the Government would intervene. When Standard Oil was taken in by the Courts it was largely over its manipulation of railroad rates. So we see that railroads were the main target of and impulse behind Roosevelt's trust busting.

Roosevelt was entirely shortsighted to focus his entire legislative program around the railroads. To get his railroad bill he gave Congress to Uncle Joe Cannon. Cannon and Aldrich ran circles around Roosevelt thereafter. [Not to say that's all Roosevelt accomplished; it was his major program, and marked the apex of his legislative triumphs; after 1906, he got next to nothing]

I credit Taft with larger, more meaningful reforms than railroad rates. Taft passed workers comp for the railroad industry and other labor reforms. The 16th Amendment did more to form the 20th Century than anything Roosevelt did. Also, Taft's trade reciprocity and international arbitration agreements set a standard for what followed, and continues to follow. I think Taft would have a thing or two to say on today's debate with the UN.

We'll have to see the sourcing for this "Great Tax Wars" author's claim that Taft never intended for the 16th to be ratified. I disagree. That was a lie that La Follette & Co. accused of Taft during their 1911 pre-nomination gaming. I know of nothing in Taft's personal letters that shows any insincerity in the amendment. On the contrary, Taft proposed it because he saw that an income tax was coming, and it revolted him to the bottom of his large gut that Congress pass a law that went contrary to a standing Supreme Court decision.

Taft did not support a personal income tax. And he did think that Wilson's high taxes turned the public against him (back in 1913, Taft sincerely thought that Wilson's tariff would kill the economy). What's missing here, and I suppose the Great Tax War author discusses this, is the tariff. In order to get tariff revision through the Senate, Taft needed to take away the revenue imperative for it by offering an alternative revenue source. He pulled a double switch on the Democrat/progressive alignment for an income tax and Aldrich himself. Just when Dem. Sen. Bailey was about to consolidate various income tax supporters, and just when Aldrich was about to lose control of it, Taft tossed a bomb by proposing a corporation excise tax and the 16th Amendment. It cut everybody at the knees, and the tariff revision went forward. The corporation tax was successful and passed a Court test the following year.

That History Channel's summary of Taft you linked us takes my breath away. Roosevelt-centric history. See what I'm up against? I hate to seem obsessed by Roosevelt; I'm not. I just can't get away from him, for he's got history in a trance.