Pinchot–Ballinger controversy
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The Pinchot–Ballinger controversy, also known as the "Ballinger Affair", was a dispute between middle level officials in the U.S. government regarding whether or not the federal government should allow private corporations to control water rights, or instead cut them off so that the wilderness would be protected from capitalist greed. In 1909-1910 the dispute escalated to a battle between President William Howard Taft (who supported Richard Ballinger) and ex-president Theodore Roosevelt (who supported Gifford Pinchot). Pinchot and his allies accused Balinger of criminal behavior to help an old client of his and thus promote big business. Ballinger was eventually exonerated but the highly publicized dispute escalated a growing split in the Republican Party. Taft took control of the Republican Party in 1912, but Roosevelt started a third "Progressive" party. Both Taft and Roosevelt were defeated in the three-way 1912 presidential election, with Democrat Woodrow Wilson the winner.[1]
Pinchot, a close personal friend of Roosevelt, was Chief of the U.S. Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture. Richard A. Ballinger was U.S. Secretary of the Interior, a separate cabinet department. Roosevelt in 1908 selected Taft as his successor in the White House because he thought Taft fully agreed with his main policies. Roosevelt then left the country in early 1909. Roosevelt's friends flooded him with messages hostile to Taft, and Roosevelt returned in 1910 convinced that his protege had betrayed him. The feud helped to define national political alignments in 1910-1914, as well as the conservation movement in the early 20th century.