Roosevelt’s chief service to his country while President was undoubtedly that of preventing the huge combinations and trusts which threatened to gain control of the country during his administration.
For years great business corporations had been in formation. They controlled enormous wealth and their financial power led them to disregard public opinion, even to the extent of defying the law.
Public disapproval was growing stronger and stronger. Independent newspapers and magazines had informed the public of the oppressive methods of these trusts. A leader was wanted. Roosevelt became that leader.
The foe was mighty. It had entrenched itself in Congress, yet Roosevelt won several noteworthy victories and started the nation in the way of ending this evil.
The warfare against the trusts was continued throughout Roosevelt’s entire administration. Measures for the control of the trusts were prepared and pressed on Congress with Rooseveltian strenuosity.
A railway rate bill was passed, forbidding under severe penalties the fraud of rebates. A general pure food law was passed, penalizing the act of adulteration, and requiring that every article of medicine or food should be labeled and sold for just what it was. With these and several other measures, corporation fraud was thus brought to a halt.
At this period Roosevelt was a flaming fire. His spirit was as a fierce blaze consuming the materialism that had crept from the ranks of business into public life. Popular grievances against unjust exploitation by leaders of industry became to him the signal to attack. His ordering of the suit of dissolution against the Northern Securities Company subjected him to the enmity of powerful men, yet before a short time passed the opinion became general that his decision had been vital to the public good.
He aroused the bitter opposition of Big Business by his successful endeavors to control it, but time proved that by his act on behalf of the people he had saved the vested interests from the wholesale division by Congress of such monopolies had they been formed.
While he was the first of our Presidents to come into conflict with corporate power, he nevertheless favored and promoted legitimate business, and he stood for the protection of American industries from the cheap labor of Europe.