Roosevelt and the Square Deal
Mr. Williams
10th Grade U.S. History
The “Bully Pulpit”
• “The absolute vital question”
facing the country was “whether
or not the government has the
power to control the trusts.”
• Goal was to shift center of power
from Wall Street to Washington
Labor
• Anthracite Coal Strike 1902
• More than 150,000 coal
miners in Pennsylvania went
on strike
• Higher wages, shorter hours,
and recognition of UMW
• Roosevelt threatened to take over
mines and run them with federal
troops
• Miners won a wage increase and
reduction of hours, but owners
won in not formally recognizing
Union
•Who were the
Progressives?
•What did they want to
reform?
•How did Roosevelt deal
with the Coal Strike in
1902?
• “We demand that big business
give the people a square deal;
in return we must insist that
when anyone engaged in big
business honestly endeavors
to do right he shall himself be
given a square deal.”
-Theodore Roosevelt
Square Deal
•1904 Campaign Slogan
which called for limiting
power of trusts, promoting
public health and safety,
and improving working
conditions
Trust Busting
• As part of the Square Deal,
Roosevelt started to go after “bad
trusts”
• Sold inferior products, competed
unfairly, or corrupted public
officials
Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890
• Prohibited trusts from becoming
monopolies to reduce competition
• Roosevelt used this to file law suits
against 43 trusts such as the
American Tobacco Company and
Rockefeller’s Standard Oil
Railroads
• Northern Securities Company
• U.S. attorney general sued
company for violating Sherman
Anti Trust Act
• Supreme Court ordered trust to
disperse
The Jungle
• Written in 1906 by Upton
Sinclair
• Exposed the wretched and
unsanitary conditions at
meatpacking plants
• “There would be meat stored in great
piles in rooms; and the water from leaky
roofs would drip over it, and thousands
of rats would race around it…A man
could run his hand over these piles of
meat and sweep off handfuls of the
dried dung of rats…The packers would
put poisoned bread out for them; they
would die, and then rats, bread, and
meat would go into the hoppers
together.”
• “We saw meat shoveled from
filthy wooden floors, piled on
tables rarely washed, pushed from
room to room in rotten box
carts…[the meat] was in the way
of gathering dirt, splinters, floor
filth, and the expectoration
[saliva] of tuberculous and other
diseased workers.”
Consumer Protection
• Meat Inspection Act: Required
federal inspection of meat shipped
across state lines
• Pure Food and Drug Act: forbade
the manufacture, sale, or
transportations of food and patent
medicine containing harmful
ingredients
• How was Teddy Roosevelt a
different kind of President? What
did he want to do?
• How did Teddy try to help people?
• Why did Teddy choose not to run
for a third term in 1908?
Conservation
• Roosevelt believed that each
generation had a duty to
protect and conserve natural
resources for future
generations
• Gifford Pinchot
• Shared Roosevelt’s view
•“The conservation of
natural resources is the key
to the future. It is the key
to the safety and prosperity
of the American people.”
• John Muir
• Wanted entire wilderness to be
preserved in its natural state
•“Unfortunately, God cannot
save trees from fools…Only
the government can do
that.”
National Park System
• Roosevelt supported this
system, frequently visiting
Yosemite with Muir
• Purpose is to conserve natural
wonders in places such as
Yellowstone and Grand
Canyon
• Newlands Reclamation Act 1902
• Allowed federal government to
create irrigation projects to make
dry lands productive
• U.S. Forest Service: Added nearly
150 million acres of national
forests, controlled their use, and
regulated their harvest