UNITED STATES HISTORY 737 



suspicion of the court was reflected in the refusal of Congress to authorise any grant 

 for its maintenance until the President had twice returned the general appropriation 

 bill for 1913 without his signature. Against one of the judges, Robert W. Archbald, who 

 was charged with having used his position to secure favours from litigants, impeach- 

 ment proceedings were brought (see below). The Railroad Securities Commission 

 reported in December 191 1 that it would be impracticable to place the issue of railroad 

 securities under Federal control; it recommended full publicity under the supervision 

 of the Interstate Commerce Commission, with power to make physical valuations. 



Almost from the beginning of the Taft administration its attitude toward the con- 

 servation of natural resources was bitterly assailed. This was one of the chief circum- 

 stances which alienated the progressive wing of the Republican party from 

 seo-^/on the President - In J 99 tne chief Forester, Gifford Pinchot, 1 attacked the 

 Movement, good faith of Mr. Ballinger, 2 Secretary of the Interior, accusing him of being 

 opposed to conservation and of supporting fraudulent claims to Alaskan 

 coal . lands. The charges were investigated by a Congressional committee. The 

 majority report, laid before Congress in December, 1910, completely exonerated Mr. 

 Ballinger as "a faithful and efficient public officer;" but, being dictated apparently by 

 partisan motives, the report had no substantial effect upon public opinion. On March 

 6, 1911, Mr. Ballinger resigned, the victim, the President said, of " one of the most 

 unscrupulous conspiracies for the defamation of character that history can show." He 

 was succeeded by Walter L. Fisher, 3 a pronounced conservationist. Nevertheless criti- 

 cism of the land policy of the administration continued, in one case taking the form 

 of unjustified imputations against the President and his brother in connection with the 

 sale of land on Controller Bay, Alaska, to a coal-mining syndicate. See ALASKA. 



The principle of conservation may apply not only to natural resources, but also to 

 the people themselves and to the processes of government. The phenomenal increase 

 of labour legislation shows that men have come to realise the social peril of 

 legislation. tne ^ laissez-faire attitude. Down to 1911 only three states had enacted 

 workmen's insurance or compensation laws; and in two of these cases 

 (Montana and New York) the courts, adhering to an ancient doctrine, held the acts 

 unconstitutional as taking property without due process of law. In the past two years, 

 on the other hand, fourteen states have taken action. Similarly, with reference to 

 child labour, laws were passed in 1911 by thirty of the forty-one legislatures then in 

 session, and the next year by eleven out of twenty. Among the other subjects covered in 

 191 2 4 were: the reporting of industrial accidents and diseases, woman's labour, wages, 

 and hours of labour. In Massachusetts a commission was established with power to 

 establish wage boards in any industry in which it may appear that the wages received 

 by women are insufficient to supply them with necessaries and maintain them in health; 

 but the boards may simply recommend a minimum wage and publish the names of 



1 Pinchot (b. 1865) graduated at Yale in 1889 and after studying forestry in Europe 

 devoted himself to this subject, doing the first systematic forestry work in the United States 

 at Biltmore, North Carolina, in 1892. He was Chief of the bureau of forestry, U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture, in 1898-1910 and then became president of the National Con- 

 servation Association. In 1903 he became professor of forestry at Yale. He and his 

 bro'ther Amos were deeply interested in radical reform movements and in the 1912 pres- 

 idential campaign supported La Follette and then Roosevelt. He wrote much on forestry, 

 including the article " Forests and Forestry" in the nth edition of the E. B. 



2 Richard Achilles Ballinger (b. 1858), a native of Iowa, graduated at Williams College 

 in 1884, practised law in Kankakee, Illinois, New Decatur, Alabama, and Port Townsend 

 and (after 1897) Seattle, Washington, was mayor of Seattle, 1904-06, and Commissioner 

 of the Federal General Land Office, 1907-09; and became Secretary of the Interior in 

 President Taft's cabinet March 4, 1909. He wrote on Community Property (1895) and 

 edited and annotated the Codes and Statutes of Washington (1897). 



3 Fisher was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1862; studied at Marietta College, Ohio, 

 and Hanover College, Indiana; was admitted to the bar in 1888; practised law in Chicago, 

 where he was special traction counsel in 1906-11; and was an officer of the Conservation 

 League of America, of the National Conservation Association, etc. 



4 See separate state articles under Legislation and Government. 



