Tariff, currency, and trust control were the main topics upon which the Democrats had avowed positive convictions, and upon which the great mass of progressive citizens, regardless of party affiliation, demanded legislation. One by one these were taken up, the President revealing powers of coercive leadership hitherto unseen in his office. Only the fact that non-partisan opinion was generally with him made possible the mass of constructive legislation that was placed upon the books. The tariff, which became a law on October 3, 1913, was a revision whose downward tendency was beyond dispute. The Federal Reserve Act, revising the banking laws in the interest of flexibility and decentralization, was signed on December 23 of the same year. In January, 1914, President Wilson laid before Congress his plan of trust control, advocating a commission with powers over trade coördinate with those of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and an elaboration of the anti-trust laws to deal with unfair practices and interlocking directorates. The Federal Trade Commission and Clayton Anti-Trust bills fulfilled these recommendations in the autumn of 1914. The Panama Canal Act of 1912 had meanwhile been revised so as to eliminate a preference in rates to American vessels which the President believed to be in violation of the guaranty of equal treatment pledged in the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty. With a more portentous list of constructive laws than had been passed by any Congress since 1890, the Democratic majority allowed an adjournment on October 24, 1914, and its members went home to sound their constituents upon the state of the Union.
The passage of economic laws had called for tact and force upon the part of the President, whose party, like the Republican party, was without a clear vision of its policy and included many reactionaries. Added embarrassments were found in the continuance of civil strife in Mexico. Here, shortly before the inauguration of President Wilson, there had been another revolution, followed by the elevation by the army of General Victoriano Huerta to the Presidency. The followers of the deposed Madero went into revolt at once, and the new Government was refused recognition by the United States on the ground that it was not a Government de facto, and that its title was smirched with blood. Patiently and stubbornly the United States held to its refusal to recognize the results of conspiracy in Mexico. In April, 1914, Vera Cruz was occupied by American forces in retaliation for acts of insult on the part of the Huerta régime, and in July the steady pressure of "watchful waiting" brought about the resignation of the dictator. The Constitutionalists, succeeding him, quarreled shortly among themselves, but the danger from Mexico appeared to be lessening as the year advanced.
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NORTH AMERICA
IN 1915
From Europe came other embarrassments in August. Here, the policy of national armament which had been adopted in the middle of the nineteenth century, reached its logical outcome in a great war which was precipitated by Austria in an attack upon Servia. Russia immediately came to the aid of her Slavonic kinsmen, and upon her Germany declared war on August 1. In a few more days Great Britain and France had joined Russia against the German-Austrian alliance, and most of Europe was at war. To bring home the thousands of American tourists whom the war had reduced to suffering was the first work of the administration. The American ministers in Europe became the custodians of the affairs of the belligerents in every enemy country, and with the aid of all the belligerent nations Americans were carried home. After this came the problems of neutrality and American business. Suffering, due to the stoppage of the export trade, particularly that of cotton, brought wide depression throughout the United States. A new law for the transfer of foreign-built vessels to American registry, and another for federal insurance against war risks, were hurriedly passed, and the question of a public-owned line of merchant ships was discussed. All these problems were distracting the attention of the United States when Congress brought to an end its prolonged labors, and adjourned.
The congressional election of 1914 was profoundly affected by the European war. Early in the year it appeared that conservative opposition to the Democratic program was growing, and that the Democratic majority was likely to be cut down. The Progressive party appeared to be weakening, and the control of the Republican party was settling back among those Republicans against whom the Insurgents had made their protest. But President Wilson's precise neutrality won the confidence of all parties, and although conservatives like Cannon, of Illinois, and Penrose, of Pennsylvania, won over Democrats and Progressives alike in a few cases, he retained for the Sixty-fourth Congress a working majority in the House and an enlarged majority in the Senate. His election in 1912 had been, in part, due to the dispersion of Republican strength caused by the Progressive schism; in 1914, the influence of the Progressives was negligible and the Democrats retained their power in the face of the whole Republican attack.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Between 1909 and 1914, the Outlook, to which Theodore Roosevelt had been an occasional contributor, and which had been a strong supporter of Republican policies since 1898, was the regular organ through which Mr. Roosevelt addressed the public, over his signature as Contributing Editor. In a similar way William J. Bryan reached his followers through the Commoner (1900-), and Robert M. LaFollette through his LaFollette's Weekly (1909-). Collier's Weekly became a center of the adverse criticism of President Taft. All of these, as well as the more general periodicals, are indispensable sources for the period, but are so highly partisan as to need constant correction for prejudice. The election of 1908 is treated in Stanwood's History of the Presidency from 1897 to 1909, while that of 1912 is excellently described in the New International Year Book for 1912. The theories of the new nationalism are in T. Roosevelt, The New Nationalism (1910).