The turn in Republican affairs now convinced Mr. Bryan that the signs were propitious for a third attempt to win the presidency.  The disaster to Judge Parker had taught the party that victory did not lie in a conservative policy.  With little difficulty, therefore, the veteran leader from Nebraska once more rallied the Democrats around his standard, won the nomination, and wrote a platform vigorously attacking the tariff, trusts, and monopolies.  Supported by a loyal following, he entered the lists, only to meet another defeat.  Though he polled almost a million and a half more votes than did Judge Parker in 1904, the palm went to Mr. Taft.

=The Tariff Revision and Party Dissensions.=—­At the very beginning of his term, President Taft had to face the tariff issue.  He had met it in the campaign.  Moved by the Democratic demand for a drastic reduction, he had expressed opinions which were thought to imply a “downward revision.”  The Democrats made much of the implication and the Republicans from the Middle West rejoiced in it.  Pressure was coming from all sides.  More than ten years had elapsed since the enactment of the Dingley bill and the position of many industries had been altered with the course of time.  Evidently the day for revision—­at best a thankless task—­had arrived.  Taft accepted the inevitable and called Congress in a special session.  Until the midsummer of 1909, Republican Senators and Representatives wrangled over tariff schedules, the President making little effort to influence their decisions.  When on August 5 the Payne-Aldrich bill became a law, a breach had been made in Republican ranks.  Powerful Senators from the Middle West had spoken angrily against many of the high rates imposed by the bill.  They had even broken with their party colleagues to vote against the entire scheme of tariff revision.

=The Income Tax Amendment.=—­The rift in party harmony was widened by another serious difference of opinion.  During the debate on the tariff bill, there was a concerted movement to include in it an income tax provision—­this in spite of the decision of the Supreme Court in 1895 declaring it unconstitutional.  Conservative men were alarmed by the evident willingness of some members to flout a solemn decree of that eminent tribunal.  At the same time they saw a powerful combination of Republicans and Democrats determined upon shifting some of the burden of taxation to large incomes.  In the press of circumstances, a compromise was reached.  The income tax bill was dropped for the present; but Congress passed the sixteenth amendment to the Constitution, authorizing taxes upon incomes from whatever source they might be derived, without reference to any apportionment among the states on the basis of population.  The states ratified the amendment and early in 1913 it was proclaimed.