Roosevelt+and+Trust+Busting


 * __Roosevelt and Trust Busting__ **
 * Trust busting was any government movement to dismantle trust. Trusts were large business entities that completely controlled a market, which was bad for other businesses, and eventually would turn into monopolies. The progressive presidents: Taft, TR, Wilson were big on busting trusts. Perhaps the most prominent was Roosevelt although Taft did bust more trusts than he did. Roosevelt is better known for breaking up trust because he was the one who started the movement and the one who drove the government to pass some laws restricting them. In 1890 congress pass the [|Sherman Act] which outlawed "every contact, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restrain of trade." in 1887 congress passed the Federal Interstate Commerce Act which required railroads to charge "reasonable and just" rates but it had barely any power. These laws broke up some of the most famous trusts like Standard Oil ran by John D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan's Northern Securities railroad system. Roosevelt also separated trusts into good trusts and bad trusts on base of which one affected businesses for the better. Many of the rich people that owned some of these trusts thought that Roosevelt didn't care about them and wanted to eliminate them for his own reasons, but the Square Deal explains it otherwise. The [|Square Deal] stated that he would not take either labor or business side.



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