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The Progressive Presidents Roosevelt And Monopolies

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The progressive presidents all took a multitude of measures to give the government more control over corporations by breaking up monopolies and busting trusts, but none of them advanced the concept of socialism that populists had wanted. President Theodore Roosevelt did not necessarily want to break down big companies, but wanted to even the playing field and created a program called the Square Deal that kept big businesses from taking advantage of small companies and the poor. This program was aimed towards helping the middle class and attacking bad trusts and satisfied a populist contention on controlling monopolies. In 1903, he passed the Elkins act, which stopped railroads from giving rebates for bigger businesses. This stabilized and reduced …show more content…

This is important because the ICC was originally created by the grange movement, which was the forerunner of the populists and had the same concerns. Taft made no distinction between trusts and set out to destroy all of them. Although he differed greatly from President Roosevelt on how to deal with monopolies and trusts, his intentions and goal on satisfying the populist demands were the same. President Woodrow Wilson created a program called new freedom that put strict government controls on corporations in order to benefit small companies. He also approved the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914 that strengthened the Sherman Antitrust act by spelling out specific activities that businesses could not do. His goal was to take down the “triple wall of privilege” – tariffs, banks, and trusts – and create an economy that the government had more control over. Though the presidents did place a lot of control over monopolies and trust, breaking up many abusive ones, there was one issue they did not address. Populists and progressives wanted socialism, which would spread out the wealth and power among the people, to replace capitalism, which had concentrated all the wealth and power among the big

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197 Words | 1 Pages

I do not believe that Theodore Roosevelt was anti-business; rather he opposed their unethical practices. During this time big corporations set rates that were too high, underpaid their employees, and made employees work long hours. The Interstate Commerce Commission was established in 1887 by Grover Cleveland to investigate railroad rates and rebates. President Roosevelt introduced the Hepburn act to give the ICC the right to set rates for railroad shipping. By doing this railroads and big business were unable to set their rates too high because it no longer offered rebates.

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Roosevelt did not always interfere with businesses directly, to help keep an eye on trusts and regulate them Roosevelt pushed Congress to make the Department of Commerce and Labor. This organization is still in effect today but has split up into just the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor which is essential for regulating businesses today. J.D.Rockefeller owned an oil company called Standard oil, this company had owned about 90% of the United States oil market. Rockefeller also had established a trust that allowed him to control the refining, distribution, and selling of the oil which made J.D. a huge threat because of the monopoly that the company was becoming. In 1911 the Supreme Court ruled Rockefeller’s company guilty of violating antitrust regulations and had the business split into 34

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232 Words | 1 Pages

The economic elements of the Progressive Era revolved mainly around the trusts that had a hold of the economy, as well as the trust-busting that Roosevelt took part in at the time. Big companies started taking over the economy due to the building monopolies and Roosevelt became determined to break up the damaging trusts. For example, oil companies such as Rockefeller’s and Standard Oil had basically dominated the whole oil industry during this time by driving out smaller business and intimidating railroad industries to transport their oil. Previously mentioned companies like Rockefeller’s proposed that their trusts allowed for economic advancements such as oil management and steady jobs for men, but most trusts threatened the public interests

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992 Words | 4 Pages

The seventeenth amendment stated,” The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislatures” (United States Constitution). Roosevelt also took an active part in splitting large monopolies. In 1887 he passed the Interstate Commerce Commission, which was a weak attempt to restrain big business by setting up a commission to regulate economics and services in each state. Unfortunately the railroad monopoly easily avoided this commission, which ultimately deemed unsuccessful but was the most recent attempt at regulating big business since the feeble Sherman Antitrust Act.

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408 Words | 2 Pages

During this time three different president- Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson-each played a part in fixing the monopolies and corporate greed. Breaking up one company into many, securing that not one person made all the profit. Which is good for the economy, being able to share the wealth. Yet, the government didn 't bother in touching other important

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548 Words | 3 Pages

Roosevelt anticipated on bettering the economy through experimentation with various new programs. The Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act constrained commercial bank security actions and affiliations between commercial banks and security firms. Another liberal move Roosevelt made was his Court-packing plan that was to expand the Supreme Court. Roosevelt additionally made the National Works Administration, making work laws that recognized unions and setting up Social Security which conservatives were against. With all of the acts and programs enforced by Roosevelt, he can easily be defined as a liberal.

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184 Words | 1 Pages

This article talks about Theodore Roosevelt's Square Deal and the main goals of the progressive era. Progressivism was a reform movement that occurred at many different places during 1890-1917 that had these overall goals: to make the government less corrupt and more democratic, to better the effects of industrialization, and to control corporate power. To address the first problem of corruption in the government, many states adopted initiative and referendum then campaigned for women's rights. More laws came in that limited the work hours, abolished child labor, and set minimum wages across the nation. Then in order to rein in corporate power, the Sherman Anti-trust Act of 1990 was passed.

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Eventually Roosevelt backed down. In 1903, Roosevelt wanted Congress to create a Department of Commerce and Labor to investigate corporations engaged in interstate commerce. When Congress did not want to do it, he took measures to ensure that they would pass it and they did in the end. Through these things in the reading along with the other things he did we see that Roosevelt while progressive went about it differently than Wilson did.

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The three C’s, or basic goals of the deal are to conserve the countries natural resources, take control of U.S. corporations, and protect consumers. These objectives were designed to aide middle class citizens and attacked capitalists and bad trusts while simultaneously preserving companies from intense demands of unions. Roosevelt believed in authoritative federal action to mollify social corruption. During the 1912 presidential election the Square Deal approach was broadly integrated into the platform of the Bull Moose, Progressive, Party when Roosevelt was its candidate. The reform movement of Progressivism eased the devastating effects of industrial capitalism on citizens and society.

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988 Words | 4 Pages

Therefore, when ranchers and farmers need help with railroads, they gave it to them. For example, the Hepburn Act that gave the Interstate Commerce Commission which gave the government power to regulate the railroads. Then when Woodrow Wilson took over for office after the 1912 election, he passed the Federal Reserve Act and the Federal Farm Loan Act in response to the Omaha Platform. The Federal Reserve Act was the response to free silver and established the Federal Reserve System with the monetary policy and the Federal Farm Loan Act would lend long term loans to farmers with low interest rates and that was the response to subtreasury. However, the Progressive Era would end at the start of World War 1 and the Great Depression would begin after the end of

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594 Words | 3 Pages

And that when it came to business that everything and everyone was on equal playing fields when it came to their incomes and how their businesses grew. Involving the government allowed for people , which was fair , to naturally assume that president Roosevelt was moving toward socialism and running the country as a socialistic whole when that was not the case. The case was merely to save capitalism

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738 Words | 3 Pages

Roosevelt in 1933, the American economy was not in a better state by any means. In fact, Hoover’s Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act—aimed to encourage the purchase of American-made goods—resulted in diminished international trade aggravated the depressed economy even more. Immediately upon taking office, Roosevelt began his “First Hundred Days” Program, passing a slew of economic and social legislation—all part of his New Deal. However, Roosevelt did not diverge completely from Hoover’s policies; instead, he continued the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Tennessee Valley Authority, which hired hundreds of thousands of unemployed men to work on rural, local-level projects. Socialism?

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739 Words | 3 Pages

Other presidents were also able to establish antitrust reforms. President Woodrow Wilson established the Federal Trade Commission Act, aimed to prevent monopoly, and the Clayton Antitrust Bill. As Document E illustrates, the Clayton Antitrust Bill claims it unlawful to "lessen competition” or “tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce". Although Presidents Roosevelt and Wilson established reforms to stop monopoly, they still had many holes in their trust-busting campaign which severely limited the full effects of

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997 Words | 4 Pages

Prior to the first progressive president, Theodore Roosevelt, the role of the government and the president was smaller and generally supported big business, not the common worker. The progressive movement came about because of corrupt politics, such as the political boss Tweed, as well as the freedoms that big business had that made it difficult to be a small business or a worker. There was no government regulation on capitalism, and this meant that small businesses, farmers, and workers were suffering from the lacking of laws because big businesses had things like monopolies and rebates that caused low wages and high prices. Roosevelt was the first president to start to bring about these changes that the people were demanding and was followed

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924 Words | 4 Pages

Consequently, progressives worked for a stronger law to prevent business abuses. Their answer came in 1914 when Woodrow Wilson and Congress set up the Federal Trade Commission whose goal was to stop illegal business practices. President Woodrow Wilson provided the US with most of its Progressive Era

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