Smith Quits To Aid Roosevelt Campaign.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 17, 1912:
Commissioner of Corporations Declares New Party Meets His Ideas.
TO CONFER WITH COLONEL
Expects to Take Active Part In the Campaign — Conant Likely to Succeed Him.
    WASHINGTON, July 10.— Herbert Knox Smith resigned to-day as Commissioner of Corporations to join the forces of Theodore Roosevelt and the new Progressive Party. He will be succeeded, in all probability, by Luther Conant, Jr., of Brooklyn, N. Y., the present Deputy Commissioner of Corporations, who is described as an Administration exponent. The change will become effective at the close of business on Thursday, July 18.
    Mr. Smith will go to New York for a conference with Col. Roosevelt on Friday, when his plans will be mapped out. He will probably take an active part in the campaign, discussing corporations with particular reference to the Sherman anti-trust law. He admitted to-day that he had advised the former President of his contemplated action, and had tentatively discussed the future at his conference with Mr. Roosevelt at Oyster Bay last week. That conference gave rise to rumors that he would withdraw his allegiance to President Taft.
    Mr. Smith declined to discuss his official relations with President Taft, although he added his silence was not necessarily to be interpreted as meaning he had been restricted through a disagreement of ideas.
    Mr. Smith was a member of the "Tennis Cabinet" during the previous Administration. His friends assert that the Commissioner was displeased over the publication, during the pre-convention campaign of the International Harvester correspondence, in which Mr. Smith's letters to President Roosevelt, advising against the prosecution of the corporation under the Sherman law at that time, figured prominently.
    In his letter of resignation, Mr. Smith frankly advised President Taft of his intention to join the new party. He said:
    "I have the honor to offer hereby my resignation as Commissioner of Corporations, in the Department of Commerce and Labor, to take effect at the close of business. July 18, 1912.
    "I do so because I intend to support the progressive movement and the new Progressive Party. That movement includes the principles that I believe in and that I have earnestly tried to further, so far as I could, during my term of Federal service.
    "I feel that the new party represents these principles more directly and with more promise and power of performance than either the Republican or Democratic party.
    "I trust that you will pardon this expression of my personal views; it seems only courteous that I should state to you the reasons for my action.
    "I wish to retire from office as soon as practicable, and I believe that by July 18 I can so close up my official work as to leave the bureau with no substantial lapse in its operations."
    Mr. Smith is a resident of Hartford, Conn., where he practiced law and became a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives for one term. He succeeded James R. Garfield as Commissioner of Corporations in 1907.
    Mr. Conant, born in Acton, Mass., thirty-nine years ago, was connected with The New York Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin for years.