One of the things that split the Republicans in the 1912 election was that TR wanted Taft to just continue with all his policies. One area where Taft fell short in TR’s opinion was in conservation. When Taft took office he replaced James Garfield with Richard Ballinger as Secretary of the Interior. Ballinger started selling back some of the newly created federal land to private companies. Some of the people in the Forest Service accused Ballinger of taking kickbacks for the land sales. When these men complained to Taft, they had them fired. One such man was Gifford Pinchot, a close friend of TR. TR saw Taft as trying to remove men who would stop him from hurting TR’s conservation politics.
Historically Speaking 