. The bill became a law in August, 1909. "The bill, in
its final form," said the _Outlook_, which inclined toward free trade,
"is by far the most enlightened protectionist measure ever enacted in
the history of the country." "I think that the present tariff," wrote
Roosevelt, who had returned to private life, "is better than the last,
and considerably better than the one before the last."

Whatever its relation to earlier tariffs the Payne-Aldrich Act was
distasteful to the country, which had since 1897 become critical of the
methods of tariff legislation. Seven Republican Senators and twenty
Representatives voted against it on its final passage. These represented
the Middle West and the new generation, and returned home to find their
constituents generally with them in denouncing the measure as an
instrument of privilege. Some of them had broken with President Taft
during the debate, and the breach was deepened when the latter spoke in
the West, at Winona, Minnesota, and defended the act as a compliance
with the party pledge. It became apparent that the new President was
unable to procure party legislation and to maintain at the same time an
appearance of harmony in the party. Roosevelt had dissatisfied but had
overriden the conservative wing; Taft failed to satisfy the most
progressive wing and failed to silence them.

In the autumn of 1909 began a series of administrative misunderstandings
that greatly embarrassed the Taft Administration. A prospective minister
to China was dismissed abruptly before he left the United States, on
account of a supposed indiscretion. In the Department of Agriculture
there was dissension between the Secretary, James Wilson, and the
chemist engaged in the enforcement of the Pure Food Law, Harvey W.
Wiley. The chief of the forestry service, Gifford Pinchot, quarreled
openly with the Secretary of the Interior, Richard A. Ballinger, and
raised the question of the future of the policy of conservation.

The work of the forestry and reclamation services was at the center of
the scheme for conservation of natural resources that had grown out of
Roosevelt's conference with the governors in 1908. A subordinate of the
forestry service attacked the Secretary of the Interior in 1909,
charging favoritism and lack of interest in conservation. He was
dismissed in September, upon order of President Taft, whereupon
_Collier's Weekly_ undertook an attack upon the President as an enemy of
conservation, re