Progressive Presidents From 1901-1915

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorHigh School, 11th grade August 2001

download word file, 4 pages 3.0

Downloaded 17 times

From the period of time from 1901-1915 four presidents entered the oval office as president, one of which was assassinated in September of 1901. From this point on Theodore Roosevelt served two terms, William Taft served one, and Thomas Wilson served one term. Each one did a little something different in each term than served. What they did and how they did it determined how effective they were in comparison to the other presidents. In ascending order, Taft was the least effective, Wilson was more effective than Taft was, and Roosevelt was the most effective.

While Taft did bust two times the number of trusts as Roosevelt did, he was not the most effective president by any means. William Taft was a jovial large man who over 300 pounds. Since he was a man of such a large caliber, his public effectiveness suffered greatly. Public effectiveness is something at is greatly needed by any president in order for that president to be considered effective.

Taft was not effective at all in this category. He also did not believe in strong presidential leadership, making it hard for him to be effective in office. He also was a man who could not even be considered effective by his own party because he could not stay true to any of their beliefs. The first example of this was Taft passing the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, whom his party did not want, passed. Secondly, Taft fired Gifford Pinchot. Pinchot had accused Richard Ballinger of selling lands in Alaska for his own personal gain. Pinchot accusing Ballinger of this seemed to be outrageous to Taft, so he fired him. Lastly, Taft than refused to act on the argument that Speaker of the House Joseph G Cannon, whom the Progressives felt had too much power. These actions proved...