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.
His suit for the dissolution of the Standard Oil Company was one of
the most significant acts of his administration. This suit was not
brought to a successful conclusion until 1911, but the credit for its
prosecution is due mainly to him.
In all these measures Roosevelt was simply carrying out his doctrine
of the square deal, which he began to preach when he assumed public
office and which in different language, but with unvarying purpose, he
preached to the end of his life.
His doctrine of fair dealing is best summed up in this speech spoken at
Dallas, Tex., April 5, 1905:
“When I say I believe in a square deal I do not mean, and probably
nobody that speaks the truth can mean, that he believes it possible to
give every man the best hand. If the cards do not come to any man, or
if they do come, and he has not got the power to play them, that is
his affair. All I mean is that there shall be no crookedness in the
dealing. In other words, it is not in the power of any human being to
devise legislation or administration by which each man shall achieve
success and have happiness; it not only is not in the power of any
man to do that, but if any man says that he can do it, distrust him
as a quack.... All any of us can pretend to do is to come as near as
our imperfect abilities will allow to securing through governmental
agencies an equal opportunity for each man to show the stuff that is
in him; and that must be done with no more intention of discrimination
against the rich man than the poor man, or against the poor man than
the rich man; with the intention of safeguarding every man, rich or
poor, poor or rich, in his rights, and giving him as nearly as may be a
fair chance to do what his powers permit him to do; always providing he
does not wrong his neighbor.”
This view he re-emphasized at another place:
“When I say a square deal I mean a square deal; exactly as much a
square deal for the rich man as for the poor man; but no more. Let each
stand on his merits, receive what is due him, and be judged according
to his deserts. To more he is not entitled, and less he shall not have.”
“This government was formed with, as its basic idea, the principle of
treating each man on his worth as a man, of paying no heed to whether
he was rich or poor, no heed to his creed or social standing, but
only to the way in which he performed his duties to himself, to his
neighbor, to the state. From this principle we cannot afford to vary by
so much as a hand’s breadth.”
It would be a mistake to think that while attacking the evils of
corporate power he did not also attack those men of Bolshevik
tendencies who out of mere discontent, tried to stir up class feeling.
This is what he had to say about these men:
“In dealing with both labor and capital and the questions affecting
both corporations and trade unions, there is one matter more important
to remember than aught else, and that is the infinite harm done by
preachers of mere discontent. These are the men who seek to excite a
violent class hatred against all men of wealth. They seek to turn wise
and proper movements for the better control of corporations and for
doing away with the abuses connected with wealth into a campaign of
hysterical excitement and falsehood in which the aim is to inflame to
madness the brutal passions of mankind....”
One shudders to think of what fate would have befallen the United
States if the monopolies which Roosevelt curbed while he was President
had been allowed to flourish until this era of revolution. That the
working people of America are contented and peace-loving today is
largely due to Roosevelt’s saving them from exploitation by the trusts.