What is the Ballinger-Pinchot affair?

Answer 1

This was a scandal about favoritism,kickbacks and coal mining in the administration of William Howard Taft, the 27th President. Ballinger was the Secretary of the Interior, and Pinchot the Curator of Forests within the department. Pinchot found out that Ballinger had taken a series of 'no-bid' contracts out (to friends, with the promise of substantial kickbacks to Ballinger) companies intent on mining coal on federally protected land. Pinchot went to Taft, Teddy Roosevelts hand picked successor, and informed him. Taft basically told Pinchot that it was ok, and that the contracts would be allowed to stand. This caused a heated argument between Pinchot and Taft with Pinchot getting fired by the President. Pinchot immediately went to the press, denouncing the contracts, Ballinger and President Taft. This led to a great deal of animosity between Taft and the Progressive (Roosevelt) wing of the Republican Party, and started the split that eventually broke the Progressives out of the Republican Party to form the Progressive ('Bull Moose') Party of the 1912 elections. This split in the Republican vote basically handed the Presidency to Woodrow Wilson, himself a progressive Democrat. In 1912, Wilson had a landslide in the electoral college, but did not out poll the Taft/Roosevelt duo, suggesting that without a split ticket the Republicans would have won handily. Of more interest, results show that nearly 70% of the voters cast ballots for Progressive candidates (Wilson and Roosevelt), showing a vast support for progressive policies.