President Roosevelt did not just focus on conservationism during his presidency. He attacked the trusts guilty of monopolies and set up the necessary reforms that resulted in businesses into accepting government regulation. According to our textbook The American Pageant, Roosevelt, as a trustbuster, made headlines in 1902 when he attack the Northern Securities Company, a railroad holding company organized by financial titan J.P. Morgan and empire builder James J. Hill. Roosevelt challenged these great big giants and their attempts to monopolized the railroad industry. In response they appealed to the Supreme Court, which in 1904 upheld Roosevelt’s antitrust suit and ordered the Northern Securities Company to be dissolved. The Northern Securities decision jolted Wall Street and angered big business but greatly ehanced Roosevelt’s reputation as a trust smasher. His big stick crashed down on other ginat monopolies, as he initiated over forty legal proceedings against them. The Supreme Court in 1905 declared the beef trust illegal, and the heavy fist of justice fell upon monopolies controlling sugar, fertilizer, harvesters, and other key products(666-667).
According to Wikipedia, Trust-busting refers to government activities designed to break up trusts or monopolies. Theodore Roosevelt is the U.S. president most associated with dissolving trusts, but his chosen successor, William Howard Taft, actually began the most of the anti-trust proceedings.
Trusts were large business entities that largely succeeded in controlling a market, essentially becoming a monopoly. The term became common in the late 19th century, when a system of trusts controlled much of the economy of the United States. In 1898, President William McKinley launched the “trust-busting” era when he appointed the U.S. Industrial Commission on Trusts, which interrogated Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Charles M. Schwab, and other industrial titans. The report of the Industrial Commission was seized upon by Theodore Roosevelt, who became known as a “Trust Buster,” dissolving 44 trusts during his two terms as president. However, the “Trust Buster” name is probably more suited for Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, who brought an end to 90 trusts in one term. Although Taft may have done more to control the trusts while in office, Roosevelt retains the nickname because he was the pioneer of trust-busting.
Do you think Roosevelt’s trust busting practices contradicts the ideals of capitalism?
Filed under: Enrichment Resources | Tagged: Roosevelt, trust busting |
AP United States History 
I think bust-trusting goes both ways. In a pure captialist society trust-busting goes against the ideals of capitalism. However, trust-busting helps eliminate monopoly’s, and monopolys go against another ideal of Capitalism, competition
[…] His successor, Howard Taft, continued to rein in the food and other industrial trusts; between them the two Presidents brought down over 130 trusts in a period covering three terms of […]
[…] to the Dolphins (even though Clear Channel has about as close to a monopoly as you can have without Teddy Roosevelt rising from his grave. I also don’t think they thought there would come a time that the Heat […]
seems to me we should break-up some modern day monoplys oil companys, gas and electric holdings, Better stil with all the talk of cuting costs in goverment, they were originally p/t jobs with no benefits. If the average working (man-woman) have no health insurance why should we give it (ins) to our employees in big goverment
Where have the trust-busters gone? Our country’s economic ills are from outsourcing and then importing cheaply produced products to kill domestic businesses by mega-global trusts. Is Obama their target because they fear him as Teddy’s heir?
I think Trust-Busting is Good Capitalism because isn’t the spirit of Capitalism competition? How can there be true competition when a monopoly is in place? Roosevelt was fortunate to have a Supreme Court who was doing the people’s work – not in the pocket of corporations. Otherwise, he could not have had any traction against the Monopolies. That is why we have to overturn the Citizens United decision so we can get some traction against Corporations (like Ralph Lauren) who claim to be American, but are only beholden to their global investors.
The Republican administrations of McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft appeared to rein in the monopolies of big business, but they actually created new smaller monopolies that contributed greatly to causing the Great Depression and are still destroying the US economy today like the current oligopoly of physicians and utility monopolies for electricity and gas.