A Debate for the Ages
By: Raven Knight
Shortly after reading about Woodrow Wilson's "Underwood-Simons tariff of 1913",which was all about "reduced tariff rates by 15%"(670), I fell asleep at my desk in the middle of my paper only to be woken up harshly in what looked liked the huge conference room in the pentagon!
"Wake Up!" someone hissed in my ear
I slowly opened my eyes only to completely widen them in surprise of none other than ,former president, Theodore Roosevelt.
"What-"
"Shhh, the debate is about to begin!"
"Uh-sure. The debate. Umm who else is here?"
Theodore Roosevelt preceded to look at me incredulously for a moment and then as I began to look even more confused he simply broke out into a huge grin and laughed quietly,
"Obviously someone has 'bout a case of amnesia. My dear you are in the mist of a fantastic debate between myself , William-Howard Taft, my successor, and Woodrow Wilson , his successor. Basically we've asked you to come and help solve our long argument of who was the better president during , what is commonly called now a days , the progressive era."
I knew that I had to have been dreaming, because all three of these presidents were never able to retire from office and discus the good 'ol days together. Anyway although not as confused as before, I decided to take this as an opportunity to test my knowledge about these three presidents.
"Say Mr. Roosevelt-"
"Please call me Teddy"
"Umm ok. Well Teddy, I understand that the three of you are from the progressive era and all, but, most importantly what were the three of you striving for during this time?"
"Mostly it was all about reform movements. You know, make society better for everyone and all. I personally was into preservation and safety for the consumer. In 1902 I passed the national reclamation act which in turn started the reclamation service to get water in to those in the arid western regions(665).Also in after Upton Sinclair wrote "the jungle" I passed the pure food and drug act in 1906(664).
"always worrying about the environment! Well under me the history of liberty ,is the limitation of governmental power, not an increase of it" stated the silhouette of a man coming into the room
"I don't care much for politics, in fact theymake me sick,but, I did support the Mann-Elkins act of 1910. This act beefed up interstate commerce commission's rate-setting powers (666). A program in continuation of Teddy's Policy, so what about you?" bellowed a very pudgy man.
"coming froma man sedentary and obese as opposed to teddy here who was always fighting trim.(666). They should have nicknamed you bull moose, your obviously big enough to be one!"
"Please gentlemen this is no way to behave" stated Teddy.
"So let me guess. The big one is Taft and the one insulting Taft is Wilson?"
"Yes you are absolutely correct"
"well I guess since everyone here now we can start. From what I understand each of you had your own domestic policy. So what were some of the most important aspects of your domestic policies?"
" I focused a lot of my policies on economic. A lot of my policies were that of Antitrust suits. Some of the biggest that I was able to win was that of Standard oil and Tobacco company ().
"Yes. Two companies both initiated under me were your biggest achievements(). Just goes to show how much you really cared about my policies."
Wilson cracked up at that statement "yeah and on top of that Taft, the laziest President of them all was able to get twice as many antitrust suit wins than you were Roosevelt (). And I thought you two worked for the same team."
"Well Wilson you seem to be very animated about all of this what were some of your domestic policies?"
"well I passed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which established twelve regional reserve banks controlled by the Federal Reserve Board. This new federal system could adjust interest rates and the nation's money supply. Because it was authorized to issue currency based on government securities and "commercial paper" (the loans made to businesses by banks), the amount of money in circulation would expand or contract with the business cycle (miller) , so that conflicts about money would occur less ."
"True but mostly you ended up working towards surviving during world war I right? I mean most of your reform agenda had to be put aside (miller). But Teddy here never had to deal with that. So Teddy what were some of the policies that you created?"
"well I've always believed that big business was a natural part of a maturing economy and, therefore, saw no reason to abolish it. It was simply just not needed. As the economy grew the times of big business, I began to get notices of miss use of the railroads by their companies. The ICC notified me of the abuse within the company . so in turn I created the Elkins act of 1903 to counteract the granting of shipping rebates to certain companies.(Miller)"
"But it didn't work." Taft laughed at this "one of your supposed best policies down the drain and-"
"No Taft that wasn't my biggest achievement. My biggest was the Panama Canal, but that's not what I'm talking about. My best for domestic was the Hepburn Act of 1906(miller)"
As I listened to these men speak I realized just how different in personalities they were, but at the same time, they are quite similar. Their policies were all formed with the single thought of helping those who couldn't help themselves and to stop those who would take advantage of what wasn't being monitored. My own thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the constant arguing between the three former presidents.
"It never worked. You were never really one to be a president all you did was lay around-"
"yeah well being call bull moose isn't exactly something to boast about!"
"again coming from a guy who could possibly have his own orbit and had to order a BATHTUB to be put in the white house so he could actually get clean!(miller)"
"ENOUGH OF THIS BICKERING! I've heard from all of you but honestly you all were great in your own time. Teddy for his work both with business and with the oversees diplomacy, Taft for his work with the railroads and slowly rebuilding the economy, and Wilson for keeping us out of WWI for as long as he could and also in the process continuing on with his predecessors reform movements. So could one of you have one? Maybe. Will you? No . Why you may be asking? Well simply because of how you worked with your time period. Nobody could do better in that specific time then what you did."
After I testified my statement to them I woke up and suddenly had a vigor notion to finish my paper.
THE END!