Taft's major problem was that he wasn't TR, and that ticked off TR.
He'd hand-picked Taft to carry on his own policies, and when Taft
didn't do it, TR went back into the arena and ran as the third-party
Progressive ("Bull Moose") candidate four years later. The
Republicans tried to draft him as their candidate but ever a man of
honor TR stayed with the Progressives, so the GOP trotted out Taft
again. This was just enough to split the vote and put the
ineffectual Wilson into office - TR won 5% more of the popular vote
than Taft.
It would've been interesting to see how things might have been
different on the world stage had TR been elected in 1912. As a hawk
(and imperialist) he certainly would've gotten us into WW1 sooner,
and thus it may have ended far sooner and kept Britain stronger...and
maybe less reason for Germany to have become so completely
demoralized and humiliated and thus maybe no support for the rise of
Hitler...but who knows.
and TR's cousin Franklin took almost the entire Progressive platform
with him the the then-moribund Democratic party, revitalizing and
reinventing it as the party of the people (TR's "Square Deal"
transforming into FDR's New Deal) and creating a legacy that has only
recently weakened.
So sure, Blame Taft!
On Feb 12, 2006, at 9:55 AM, estott wrote:
> Actually the country did quite well under the Taft administration.
> He let
> his conservative ideas get in the way a bit, and the Tariff act
> looks bad
> nowadays but was very popular at the time. (He was a better
> president than
> Wilson, who was an intelligent man who should have remained in the
> acedemic
> community instead of entering politics.) His administration didn't
> originate the Teapot Dome Scandal- Roosevelt and Taft just created
> the naval
> petroleum reserves of which Teapot Dome was just one. The scandal
> only got
> underway in 1921-22 at which time Roosevelt had been dead three
> years and
> Taft was a supreme court justice.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <[email protected]>
> To: "Antique Phonograph List" <[email protected]>
> Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2006 12:18 PM
> Subject: Re: [Phono-L] Idelia SOLD
>
>
>>
>> Um.........if you check your history, the scandal began with
>> Roosevelt &
>> Taft.
>> -------------- Original message --------------
>> From: Peter Fraser <[email protected]>
>>
>>> that was Harding! altho Taft was no prize, either.
>>>
>>> On Feb 11, 2006, at 10:14 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>>>
>>>> Jeeze, I hope it wasn't part of Teapot Dome
>>>> Scandal.................
>>>>
>>>> Bill
>
> _______________________________________________
> Phono-L mailing list
> [email protected]
>
> Phono-L Archive
> http://www.oldcrank.org/pipermail/phono-l/
