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Yeah, it was all about the socialist Pinchot and his minime Louis Glavis. They freaked out when Taft replaced TR’s Interior Secretary with Ballinger (who had served under Garfield in the Land Office, so he had appropriate experience).

Glavis accused Ballinger of siding with the mining “trusts!” (I once cataloged about 20 different “trusts” that were objects of a general media freakout in 1911/12). Glavis presented Taft with a ridiculous, novel-length report on Ballinger’s supposed corruption over Alaska coal claims by a guy, Cunningham, who had partnered with the “Alaska Syndicate,” a Morgan-Guggenheim partnership. Taft read the document, reasonably dismissed the accusations as hyperbolic and innuendo, and fired Glavis for insubordination.

Pinchot then got involved by having a progressive Republican, Senator Dolliver, read a Pinchot letter into the Congressional Record. Taft then fired Pinchot, which was the intended effect. Congressional hearings cleared Ballinger of any wrongdoing.

It was all concocted and silly, but Pinchot got what he wanted by using it as a wedge between Taft and TR. It also forced Ballinger’s later resignation. His successor, Walter Fisher, eventually rejected the Cunningham claims. I don’t remember details, but I think Fisher was a bit of a progressive and that Taft was just hoping the whole thing would go away and he might appease TR w/ the appointment.

Btw, Taft’s friend, Gen. Edwards, had the best description of TR’s little admirers, calling them “incense swingers,”

“... largely of the New England element, possibly more the Harvard type, who are supposed to stand around the President as acolytes do about a priest and swing incense at him and about him, while the center figure stands with this skirts outspread to receive the adulation … and who never think the President makes a mistake.”

A most fitting description of the environment of more than a few White Houses... ahem, Barry.