Steel Merger; blurted out in Minnesota, “a State which is the hotbed of the insurgent [progressive] movement,” that the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, which raised rates to sky-high levels, was “the best tariff bill” the United States ever had;[10] inserted himself into the controversy about conservation policy by firing Chief Forrester Gifford Pinchot while retaining Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger; and explained his dogged persistence in the face of certain defeat… [read post]