WILSON 



6304 



WILSON 



Amendment to the Constitution in the closing 

 hours of the Taft administration. 



At the time of its passage the Underwood- 

 Simmons Tariff Act was popularly regarded as 

 more important than the Glass-Owen, or Fed- 

 eral Reserve, Act, which was the second great 

 legislative achievement of the Wilson admin- 

 istration. To secure the passage of this act the 

 President's influence was again brought to bear 

 on Congress. In spite of some important 

 amendments, the act as passed was substan- 

 tially in the form in which it was first presented 

 to Congress. Before Congress finally adjourned 

 it passed two more constructive measures, the 

 Clayton Anti-Trust Act and the Trade Com- 

 mission Act. The former prohibited interlock- 

 ing directorates and otherwise defined the gov- 



was an economic mistake, a political wrong and 

 a tactical error. In spite of opposition, par- 

 ticularly from those who declared that he was 

 lowering the American flag to the demands of 

 foreigners, he succeeded in convincing Congress 

 that the exemption should not be allowed to 

 stand. 



The Mexican Problem. Perhaps the thorniest 

 problem the administration had to face in 1913 

 and 1914, and the one whose attempted solu- 

 tion caused unbounded criticism, was the Mexi- 

 can problem. The President adopted a policy 

 which was popularly known as "watchful wait- 

 ing," which meant that military pressure would 

 not be used against Mexico's warring factions 

 except as a last resort. Every other kind of 

 pressure, however, including moral, economic 



ELECTION MAP OF 1912 ELECTION MAP OF 1916 



States in black in both maps gave their electoral votes to Woodrow Wilson, Democrat ; in white 

 (1912) to Theodore Roosevelt, Progressive; in shaded lines (1912) to William H. Taft, Republican; 

 in shaded lines (1916) to Charles Evans Hughes, Republican. 



ernment's attitude towards the trusts; the 

 latter provided a commission of five members, 

 whose relations to corporations generally were 

 planned to correspond to those of the Inter- 

 state Commerce Commission to railroads (see 

 TRUSTS). 



With the passage of these four important 

 laws, the Wilson administration concluded its 

 program of constructive legislation, a record 

 probably unparalleled in the history of any 

 preceding Congress. Congress was in session 

 for a longer continuous period than at any 

 other time in the nation's history, and the laws 

 it passed went unhesitatingly to the bottom of 

 business and financial conditions. The success 

 of the President in driving these bills through 

 Congress proved him a capable party leader as 

 well as a far-seeing statesman. So, too, in the 

 matter of repealing the Panama Canal tolls ex- 

 emption clause (see page 4474), he appealed to 

 Congress to act both as a matter of statesman- 

 ship and as a matter of policy. The law, he said, 



and financial, was brought to bear on Huerta, 

 whom the administration refused to recognize 

 as the lawful President of Mexico. In Decem- 

 ber, 1913, President Wilson read a special mes- 

 sage to Congress, in which he stated there 

 could be no peace in Mexico until Huerta was 

 eliminated. Meanwhile the counter-revolution, 

 led by Carranza and Villa, was making some 

 progress; and after February, 1914, when Presi- 

 dent Wilson removed the embargo on the ship- 

 ment of arms, it made rapid progress. 



On April 9, 1914, occurred the Tampico inci- 

 dent, when a number of American marines were 

 arrested by a Mexican officer. Rear-Admiral 

 Mayo, the American commander, demanded 

 their immediate release, which was granted, and 

 an apology and a salute to the United States 

 flag, both of which were refused. After nego- 

 tiations failed, President Wilson, on April 20, 

 asked and received from Congress power to 

 use the military and naval forces to secure 

 reparation. Then followed the occupation of 



