Can you get a square deal from todays politicians?

Square deal possible today?

The Square Deal was the term used by Theodore Roosevelt in his campaigns against financial trusts, business interests that controlled markets and the domination of the U.S. economy by the “predatory rich.” “We demand that big business give people a square deal,” he insisted on a nationwide tour in 1901 to rally public support for proposed legislation to regulate corporations. In his 1904 election campaign Roosevelt used the term to describe his domestic program, promising, “I shall see to it that every man has a square deal, no more and no less.”

Roosevelt's Square Deal promised a “balance” between the claims of management and labor, producers and consumers. He was not against large corporations and he had no intention of eliminating large accumulations of private wealth. Rather, he intended to act against their tendency to use the powers of national and state governments against labor and consumers. He called for the creation of a new cabinet department of Commerce and Industries, which would be able to regulate industries engaged in interstate commerce. Instead, in 1903 Congress created a Department of Commerce and Labor but did not give it the regulatory powers proposed by the President. That would have to wait until later.

In 1906 Roosevelt consolidated his Square Deal with several legislative victories. Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act, the Pure Food and Drug Act, and the Hepburn Railroad Act, which regulated industries and prevented trusts from fixing prices or providing consumers with unsafe products.

Some of his accomplishments were:

1. Sherman Antitrust Act (Felt trusts should be judged on actions)

2. Mediated Coal Strike

3. Elkins Act (1903) The Elkins Act ended the common practice of the railroads granting rebates to their most valued customers.

4. Hepburn Act (1906)-Gave ICC the power to set maximum railroad rates.

5. Pure Food and Drug Act - Passed in 1906 and amended in 1911 to include a prohibition on misleading labeling.

6. Meat Inspection Act (1906)

7. Conservation -National Parks-Strengthening of Forest Bureau and created National Forest Service.-Creation of much national park land