How Did Aldrich Taft Influence His Government

William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on September 15, 1857. His family has a history of being involved in politics. His father was Secretary of War and Attorney General under President Ulysses S. Grant, and was later ambassador to Austria-Hungary and Russia under President Chester A. Arthur. Taft attended Yale and then went on to study law at the University of Cincinnati. Under President William McKinley, Taft was given the job of setting up a civilian government in the Philippines. This allowed the Filipino people to have a voice in their government. Taft was the Secretary of War under Theodore Roosevelt; later on when Theodore Roosevelt’s second term was drawing to a close, Roosevelt practically hand-picked Taft to succeed

Aldrich created his own proposal in response, which contained around 900 to Payne’s original proposal. Taft was persuaded by Conservatives in Congress to accept this new proposal. The result was the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act, a watered-down and ineffective compromise. This incident also split the Republican party, as both Conservatives and Progressives felt alienated by Taft ("Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act"). The passing of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act proves that Taft did a poor job remaining strong in his beliefs. Instead of sticking to his beliefs and advocating for lower tariffs, Taft gave into persuasion and temptation. In an effort to try and please everyone, Taft accidentally angered a lot of people. Taft was not a strong leader. According to the Truman Paradigm, a good president must have the ability to develop new ideas. Additionally, they must also understand how implementing these new ideas will affect the present as well as the future. One of these new ideas that Taft developed was the principal of dollar diplomacy. Under dollar diplomacy, the United States guaranteed loans to “strategically important foreign countries” ("Dollar Diplomacy") as a way to promote American commercial interests and economic power abroad. Even though Taft developed the idea of dollar diplomacy, it was not as effective in foreign policy as Taft would have

In Nicaragua, for example, Taft guaranteed loans to the government and supported the overthrow of the Nicaraguan president, Jose Santos Zelaya. This was resented by the Nicaraguan people. Eventually, a civil war broke out and Taft had to intervene by sending in military forces. A similar incident occurred in Haiti. Taft wanted to try to improve the economy in Haiti through American investment, but his actions caused resentment from the Haitian people. As a result, a civil war broke out later on and President Woodrow Wilson sent troops to protect American citizens and investments. Other failed attempts at dollar diplomacy occurred in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Liberia, and China. ("Dollar Diplomacy") The main goal of dollar diplomacy was to create stability in foreign nations that would be beneficial to American economic interests. However, this was not accomplished. It failed to create stability and actually caused rebellion and unrest in some cases. Additionally, dollar diplomacy failed to produce profits for American businesses. Most of Taft’s foreign policy measures under dollar diplomacy would be undone by his successor, Woodrow Wilson. While Taft developed this idea of dollar diplomacy, he did not fully understand the implications of putting these policies in