cacy. Like Roosevelt, Taft had trouble in getting
them enacted, and unlike Roosevelt, he failed to magnetize the people
and carry them with him. He procured, however, funds for the creation of
a board of tariff experts to aid in future revisions of schedules, and
for a commerce court, to handle appeals in interstate commerce cases.
The income tax amendment secured his support. He used his influence to
prevent the seating of William Lorimer, a Senator elected from Illinois
under conditions of grave scandal. The Interstate Commerce Law was
revised and strengthened in 1910. An enabling act for Arizona and New
Mexico was passed in 1910, under which both of these Territories became
States in 1912. He continued the series of anti-trust suits begun under
Roosevelt, and procured decisions ordering the dissolution of the
Southern Pacific merger, the Standard Oil Company, and the Tobacco
Trust, and the penalizing of many others.

In the field of administration President Taft showed an instinct for
orderly and economical government. He urged upon Congress the adoption
of a budget system for expenditures, and employed a body of experts to
aid in reducing the cost and inefficiency of the executive departments.
He extended the civil service until in 1912 only 56,000 of the 334,000
federal employees were still outside the classified service.

The foreign negotiations of the Taft Administration were most
distinguished in respect to Latin-American trade, to arbitration, to
neutrality, and to reciprocity. With the Latin-Americas he continued the
policy of friendly support, through Philander C. Knox, his Secretary of
State. The critics of this policy stigmatized it as "dollar diplomacy,"
but Taft and Knox defended it as leading these republics through sound
finance to stable government. A protracted revolution in Mexico led to
the expulsion of President Porfirio Diaz in 1911, and was followed by
counter-revolutions in 1912. Throughout the disturbance Taft maintained
a rigid neutrality, and induced Congress to permit him to prohibit the
export of arms for sale to the belligerents. This constituted an advance
upon the customary practice of neutrals, who are permitted under
international law to sell munitions of war to either belligerent.

In 1908, Roosevelt had signed general arbitration treaties with Great
Britain and other countries, containing the usual reservations of cases
involving honor or national existence. In 1911, Taft signed ye