Antitrust Movement Essay

The issue of trusts has been an ongoing debate in the United States, centering on whether the government should control competition in the marketplace. As the industrial revolution and a booming economy emerged in the United States in the nineteenth century, so did large corporations. Companies such as Carnegie Steel Corporation and Drexel, Morgan and Co. were so dominant in their given industries, whether that be from creating agreements with competitors or by controlling virtually every element of an industry, that the government had to create new regulations on the business practices of American corporations. Antitrust laws were and continue to be a necessary government regulation to maintain fair competition, and inherently fair prices

The Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act both defined what the government considered a trust to be and allowed the government to dissolve trusts and monopolies by making them illegal. However, the Antitrust Movement didn’t come without any setbacks. For one, the general consensus on big business among the general American population was positive. Business lobbying was used by companies to convince government officials, and consequently the American working class, that the booming businesses of the nineteenth century were beneficial to the economy and to the individual buyer or employee. Corporate lobbying was used to heavily influence policymakers into lessening the severity and enforcement of antitrust laws in the Sherman Act. Industry groups and individual companies continually lobby for favorable treatment. A notable Sherman Act case was that of the Colombia Outdoor Advertising Company of Colombia, South Carolina. The company “controlled over ninety-five percent of all billboard advertising in the Colombia area and enjoyed cozy relations with city officials”