1. 27 William Howard Taft Busted Standard Oil Dollar Diplomacy Payne-Aldrich Act Gifford-Pinchot Conflict

6. Busted Standard Oil Taft's intent to provide more efficient administration for existing reform policies was perfectly suited for the prosecution of anti-trust violations. More trust prosecutions (99, in all) occurred under Taft than under Roosevelt, who was known as the "Great Trust-Buster.“ The two most famous antitrust cases under the Taft Administration, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and the American Tobacco Company, were actually begun during the Roosevelt years.

7. He also won a lawsuit against the American Sugar Refining Company to break up the "sugar trust" that rigged prices. And when Taft moved to break up U.S. Steel, Roosevelt accused him of a lack of insight -- unable to distinguish between "good" and "bad" trusts.

8. Above is a 1910 political cartoon featuring Taft and his Veto Pen.

9. Dollar Diplomacy Whereas Theodore Roosevelt had employed “Big Stick” diplomacy to bend weaker nations to his will, William Howard Taft preferred to use money as leverage. Taft believed that he could convince smaller, developing nations to support the United States by investing American dollars in their economies. “Dollar Diplomacy,” as pundits dubbed it, not only made allies but also made money for American investors.

10. Taft put his new policy to the test in Manchuria, where he offered to purchase and develop the Manchurian Railway to prevent Russia and Japan from seizing control of it and colonizing the region. However, both powers refused to hand the railway over to the United States, and the deal quickly fell through.

11. Payne-Aldrich Act Many Progressive Republicans hoped that Taft would keep his campaign promise to reduce the protective tariff. Although he tried, Taft did not have enough political clout to prevent conservatives within the party from repeatedly amending a bill for a lower tariff. By the time the Payne-Aldrich Tariff a tariff that effected only modest reductions.

12. Although during the course of congressional action Taft had threatened to veto a tariff bill with insufficient reductions, when the Payne- Aldrich bill came to his desk he signed it, later claiming it was the best tariff bill ever passed by Congress. Taft's reversal on tariff reform immediately alienated progressives who saw high tariffs as the "mother of trusts.“

13. Triangle Shirtwaist Company Triangle Waist Company, often called the Triangle Shirtwaist Co., manufacturers of women's cotton and linen blouses. Located in lower Manhattan in the early 20th cent., on Mar. 25, 1911 it was the site of New York City's worst factory fire.

14. The company, which occupied the top three floors of the 10-story Asch Building, employed some 500 young seamstresses, mainly Jewish and Italian immigrants, and less than 100 men. The fire began on the eighth floor at about 4:45 P.M.; fed by burning cloth, it became a conflagration.

15. Although hindered by inward-opening doors that slammed shut in the crush, most of those on the eighth and tenth floors managed to escape, but on the ninth the rear door, bolted to prevent theft, could not be opened, and after the fire escape collapsed most were trapped. Clothes and hair ablaze, many women jumped to their deaths.

16. Fire companies could do little, as neither water from their hoses nor their ladders reached above the seventh floor and their safety nets ripped with the weight of so many. In less than 15 minutes 146 died, nearly all women. The company's owners were tried for manslaughter, but acquitted (1914), and their liability was limited to $75 in damages paid to 23 of the victims' families, awarded after a civil suit

17. The outcry occasioned by the fire, however, led to important reforms. The Factory Investigating Commission (headed by Robert F. Wagner and Alfred E. Smith, the Bureau of Fire Investigation, and the Fire Department's Fire Prevention Division were all established later in 1911.

18. The ultimate result of their investigations were new labor, health, and fire safety laws, which, among other things, mandated outward-opening doors, sprinkler systems, fire drills, and regular building inspections, and forbade locked doors during working hours.

28. Next of kin attempt to identify victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, New York City, 1911