1904, as both candidates we're conservatives in 1924.
The same is true of 1904.
Teddy Roosevelt was a liberal
Teddy Roosevelt was SO clearly the most conservative option in the 1912 election that it's not even funny. Calling yourself a "progressive" does not mean the same thing in 1912 that it does in 2015...
Robert Taft was more conservative.
In 1912 most liberal to least
1. Woodrow Wilson
2. Teddy Roosevelt
3. Robert Taft
President Taft broke up more monopolies than Roosevelt who took a middle of the road "some trusts are good for business and government , some are bad" approach. Roosevelt even criticized Taft for the amount of trusts he went after. Taft also worked to pass the 16th amendment.
William Howard Taft believed in a thorough enforcement of the antitrust act, without favoritism to one trust or another. In principle, Taft was more conservative than Roosevelt because he did not seek an active transformative role in the Presidency like TR, nor did he communicate a broad vision of the expansion of government's role in the economy and society anything like TR did in his 1912 campaign. All of the candidates in 1912 could be called progressives of one variety or another, but Taft's was more measured, and he had for his time a relatively conservative view of the Constitution and the political order.
