Teddy Roosevelt’s Square Deal Presidency 1901 – 1908
Read pp. – 535-540 and take notes using the chart below
Regulating Big Business
Protecting the Environment
-Tycoons: J. P. Morgan, James
J. Hill, and E. H. Harriman joined
their railroads together to
eliminate the competition.
-For violating the Sherman
Antitrust Act, the following year,
Teddy Roosevelt directed the
U.S. attorney general to sue the
Northern Securities Company.
-Since the Supreme court came
to the conclusion that the
monopoly violates the Sherman
Antitrust Act, it ordered the
corporation dissolved.
-A trust busting campaign was
created by an encouraged
Roosevelt administration.
-But, the size of the trust was not
the issue. What mattered was
whether a particular trust was
good or bad for the American
public.
-Bad trusts like the ones that sold
inferior products, competed
unfairly, or corrupted public
officials were went after by the
Roosevelt administration.
-Regulation was another way to
make sure that businesses
competed more fairly.
-The Elkins Act was passed,
which prohibited railroads’
acceptance of rebates.
-This act made sure that all of the
customers would pay the same
rates for the shipping of their
products.
- Some food producers, drug companies, and meat
packers were selling dangerous products to an
unknowing public- which means that these
consumers were unaware of what they were
consuming.
-“We of an older generation can get along with what we
have, … but in your full manhood and womanhood you
will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and
man so thoughtlessly destroyed; and because of that
want you will reproach us, not for what we have used,
but for what we have wasted.”
-Theodore Roosevelt
-Before Teddy become president, the federal
government had left the resources of the nation,
largely unregulated.
-Gifford Pinchot also shared Roosevelt’s view 
Came up with the word conservation to describe the
need to protect the country’s natural environment.
-"The conservation of natural resources is the key to the
future. It is the key to the safety and prosperity of the
American people."  shows Pinchot’s belief that
scientific management of the natural resources was
crucial to sustaining them, in order to serve the
needs of the nation.
- The Antiquities Act of 1906 was what had led to
the creation of 18 national monuments during the
time period the Roosevelt was president. For many
historians, environmental conservation is Teddy
Roosevelt’s greatest legacy.
Which law(s) do you feel were important? How would you rate Teddy as a president?
The Antiquities Act of 1906 seemed to me, to be one of the most important laws. It was one
that led to the creation of 18 national monuments during Roosevelt’s presidency; and it also
included environmental conservation, which the historians believe, is Roosevelt’s greatest
legacy. I would rate Teddy as a good president, considering he took under recognition for the
things that needed to be focused on, for example- natural resources. Teddy knew that they were
limited, and tried to figure out a way that they could be controlled.