American History Chapter
16-3
Theodore Roosevelt’s
Square Deal
Theodore Roosevelt
• Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901.
– Bully pulpit: T.R. used the presidency as a platform for change.
Roosevelt’s Presidency
• 1902 - Roosevelt broke up a major coal strike by
threatening to take control of the mines.
• 1904 campaign slogan: The Square Deal.
– Promised all Americans fair treatment.
• Used the Sherman Antitrust Act to bust up bad trusts.
• Elkins Act: Protected RR customers from unfair rates.
• Hepburn Act: Gave the ICC the power to regulate
interstate trade.
Consumer Protection Under T.R.
• Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle: Exposed the meat
packing industry & their unsanitary practices.
– Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act: Required
federal inspection of meat passing over state lines.
– Pure Food & Drug Act: Forbade the making & sale of food
& medicines that contained harmful ingredients.
• Also required ingredient labels.
Sinclair
Environmental Protection
• John Muir: Naturalist who encouraged the gov’t. to
preserve nature.
– “God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought,
disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods.
But he cannot save them from fools.”
John Muir
• Gifford Pinchot: First to use the word conservation in
terms of protecting natural environment.
Roosevelt’s Greatest Legacy
• President Roosevelt believed that natural resources
were limited & and their use needed to be
controlled.
– Newlands Reclamation Act: Provided federal irrigation
projects to make arid land more useful.
– U.S. Forest Service: Est. 1905 – Added 150 million acres of
controlled & regulated national forests.
– Antiquities Act: 1906 law that led to 18 new national
monuments during Roosevelt’s presidency.
Gila National Forest 1907
Devil’s Tower 1908
Grand Canyon 1908
Muir Woods 1908