Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt was a skillful mediator. In addition to mediating labor strikes such as the 1902 Coal Strike, and the Treaty of Portsmouth to end the war between Japan and Russia in 1906, he also used his skills to deal with the question of trusts. Roosevelt did not want to eliminate corporations but he did dislike trusts and thought they should be crushed. However the way they acted was more important to Roosevelt than their size and he only tried to check their actions if they were oppressive to the public. He used the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 to attack trusts filing suits in court against entities, including beef, oil, steel, sugar, and tobacco trusts. In all he filed 44 antitrust suits. Theodore Roosevelt once said, "We cannot afford any longer to continue our present industrial and social system, or rather no-system of every-man-for-himself," Roosevelt proclaimed in 1918. It was impossible, he said, to combine "political democracy with industrial autocracy."(Theodore Roosevelt: (The American Presidents Series)As President, Roosevelt held the ideal that the Government should be the great arbiter of the conflicting economic forces in the Nation, especially between capital and labor, guaranteeing justice to e
Indeed, the federal regulation of economic affairs that has characterized the 20th century began with Roosevelt. (GoPortal) Considering consolidation an efficient and rational means of producing goods and organizing national resources, Theodore Roosevelt nevertheless had little patience for those trusts which corruptly exploited the public interest. A better nickname I would give him is " The great regulator". com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/ah_076200_rooseveltthe. "What I am interested in is getting the hand of government on all of them - this is what I want," he said (Theodore Roosevelt: The American Presidents Series). Roosevelt emerged spectacularly as a "trust buster" by forcing the dissolution of a great railroad combination in the Northwest. President Taft was also the true "trustbuster" prosecuting ninety cases, twice as many as Roosevelt. Other antitrust suits under the Sherman Act followed. (GoPortal)His reputation as the "great trustbuster" was slightly exaggerated. As President he achieved the following: signed the Sherman Antitrust Act, negotiated compromise tariff reform and a forward-looking free trade pact with Canada, created a separate Department of Labor and postal savings system, shepherded constitutional amendments through Congress for direct election of senators and the federal income tax, directed the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate unfair railroad rates, and vigorously promoted American business abroad as a tool to enhance American influence. Previously, the Federal government had rarely been involved in business affairs.
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