Roosevelt and Taft
9/30/2015
Roosevelt takes on Trusts
Square Deal:
◦ Roosevelt’s reform programs
Why was Roosevelt considered a trustbuster?
◦ 1902: Had the attorney general to sue Northern Securities, J.P. Morgan’s holding company, for violation
of the Sherman Antitrust Act. He was trying to monopolize the railroad systems.
Commerce Clause
Describe the effect Supreme Court decisions had on the expansion of government in business.
◦ Gave it more and more power to regulate private business
Coal Strike of 1902
Explain Roosevelt’s role in the Coal Strike of 1902.
◦ He helped settle the conflict between the United Mine Workers and their employers
◦ The UMW and mine owners accepted arbitration
Regulating big business
Roosevelt’s views on big business
◦ He agreed with opponents of trust-busting
◦ Trusts were most efficient way to do business
◦ Breaking trust would raise prices
◦ U.S. steel was competing with companies from Europe
◦ Standard Oil competing with
◦ Burmah Oil (BP)
◦ Royal Dutch Petroleum (Shell Oil)
“Gentleman’s Agreement”
1903 created Department of Commerce and Labor
The Department would meet privately with big business.
Big companies, such as U.S. Steel, would open up their files.
The Department would let them fix their problems quietly
Interstate Commerce Commission
Under the Hepburn Act of 1906, The ICC worked with railroad company’s to set rates
Meat Inspection Act(1906), Pure Food and Drug Act
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
◦ Wrote about nasty conditions of meat packing plants in Chicago
Federal inspection of meat
USDA set standards of cleanliness in meatpacking plants
Pure Food and Drug Act
◦ Prohibited manufacture, sale or shipment of impure or falsely labeled food and drugs
◦ Creation of the FDA: regulates food and drugs today
Conservation
Newlands Reclamation Act
◦ Federal funds from public land sales to pay for irrigation and land development
United Forest Service(1905): Lead by Gifford Pinchot
◦ Save nation’s forests
◦ Management of timber resources in the west
Roosevelt’s impact
Increased power of the federal government
Increased concern for the environment
Taft Reforms (1908)
Payne-Aldrich Tariff
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Hardly cut tariffs and raised them on some goods
Progressives angry for not cutting tariffs
Conservatives agreed with the high tariffs
Split the Republican party
Ballinger replaced Garfield as Secretary of the Interior
◦ Ballinger opened up public lands for development
◦ Pinchot fired by Taft for insubordination
◦ Pinchot claimed Ballinger opened lands in Alaska for his own profit
Taft Achievements
1912: Children’s Bureau:
◦ Investigated and publicized problems of child labor
1910: Bureau of Mines
◦ Monitor activities of mining companies, expand national forests and protect waterpower sites
◦ New technologies in mining
Taft v. Roosevelt
1911: Taft broke up purchase of Tennessee Coal and Iron Company by U.S. Steel.
◦ He believed it went against the Sherman Antitrust Act
Roosevelt had approved the deal.
◦ Roosevelt believed Taft was going against his system of cooperation and regulation
1912: Roosevelt ran against Taft to replace him as the Republican nominee for president