ed to a
revision of the tariff. Though the party platform did not so state, this
was generally interpreted as a pledge of revision downward. Taft made
it clear during his campaign that such was his own reading of the party
pledge. He said, for instance, "It is my judgment that there are many
schedules of the tariff in which the rates are excessive, and there
are a few in which the rates are not sufficient to fill the measure of
conservative protection. It is my judgment that a revision of the tariff
in accordance with the pledge of the platform, will be, on the whole,
a substantial revision downward, though there probably will be a few
exceptions in this regard." Five months after Taft's inauguration the
Payne-Aldrich bill became law with his signature. In signing it the
President said, "The bill is not a perfect bill or a complete compliance
with the promises made, strictly interpreted"; but he further declared
that he signed it because he believed it to be "the result of a sincere
effort on the part of the Republican party to make downward revision."

This view was not shared by even all Republicans. Twenty of them in the
House voted against the bill on its final passage, and seven of them
in the Senate. They represented the Middle West and the new element
and spirit in the Republican party. Their dissatisfaction with the
performance of their party associates in Congress and in the White
House was shared by their constituents and by many other Republicans
throughout the country. A month after the signing of the tariff law,
Taft made a speech at Winona, Minnesota, in support of Congressman James
A. Tawney, the one Republican representative from Minnesota who had not
voted against the bill. In the course of that speech he said; "This is
the best tariff bill that the Republican party has ever passed, and,
therefore, the best tariff bill that has been passed at all."

He justified Mr. Tawney's action in voting for the bill and his own
in signing it on the ground that "the interests of the country, the
interests of the party" required the sacrifice of the accomplishment of
certain things in the revision of the tariff which had been hoped for,
"in order to maintain party solidity," which he believed to be much more
important than the reduction of rates in one or two schedules of the
tariff.

A second disaster to the Taft Administration came in the famous
Ballinger-Pinchot controversy. Louis R. Glavis, who bad served as a