What was mckinleys role in trust busting

He felt most comfortable in executing the law, regardless of his personal feelings for the particular piece of legislation. However, during his presidency, Congress produced significant reform legislation. In one of his first acts in office, Taft called for a special session of Congress to reform tariff law through reduced rates. Among the significant pieces of legislation passed by Congress during Taft's presidency was the Mann-Elkins Act of , empowering the Interstate Commerce Commission to suspend railroad rate hikes and to set rates.

The act also expanded the ICC's jurisdiction to cover telephones, telegraphs, and radio. Taft also placed 35, postmasters and 20, skilled workers in the Navy under civil service protection. In addition, the Department of Commerce and Labor was divided into two cabinet departments with Taft's approval. He also vetoed the admissions of Arizona and New Mexico to statehood because of their constitutional provision for the recall of judges.

When the recall clauses were removed, Taft supported statehood. And while he pushed the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment income tax , he only reluctantly advocated the Seventeenth Amendment direct election of senators. Among his most controversial actions, Taft promoted an administrative innovation whereby the President, rather than the disparate agencies of government, would submit a budget to Congress.

Congress prohibited that action, but Taft's effort foreshadowed the creation of the executive budget in the Budget and Accounting Act of , which gave the President new capacities for efficiency and control in the executive branch.

Taft's intent to provide more efficient administration for existing reform policies was perfectly suited for the prosecution of antitrust violations. More trust prosecutions 99, in all occurred under Taft than under Roosevelt, who was known as the "Great Trust-Buster. He also won a lawsuit against the American Sugar Refining Company to break up the "sugar trust" that rigged prices.

And when Taft moved to break up U. Steel, Roosevelt accused him of a lack of insight—unable to distinguish between "good" and "bad" trusts. By , however, Taft began to back away from his antitrust efforts, stung by the criticism of his conservative business supporters and unsure about the long-range effect of trust-busting on the national economy.

Most importantly, Taft had surrounded himself with conservative businessmen who shared his love for golf and recreation at fine resorts.

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Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson Richard M. Nixon Gerald R. Bush William J. Morgan had made a secret deal to combine their railroad stocks in a "holding company," another type of trust.

Their new company, the Northern Securities Company, controlled all the major railroads in the Northwestern states. Morgan went to the White House to meet with Roosevelt. Morgan asked if Roosevelt was going to attack his steel trust and other interests. Northern Securities lost in the lower courts and appealed to the Supreme Court, claiming that the Sherman Act violated the freedom to make contracts.

In in a stunning opinion for the court, Justice John Marshall Harlan declared that "every combination" that eliminates interstate competition was illegal. The court included combinations of manufacturing companies and railroads. In separate opinions, however, a majority of justices indicated that they believed that the Sherman Act only banned unreasonable combinations. The Supreme Court majority found that all monopolies tended to restrain trade and "to deprive the public of the advantages that flow from free competition.

The voters returned Roosevelt to the White House in the election of Early the next year, Ida Tarbell and other Progressive journalists, whom Roosevelt later called "muckrakers," condemned secret railroad rebates to Standard Oil and other big companies. The rebates had drawn controversy for years. In December , Roosevelt called on Congress to empower the Interstate Commerce Commission to ensure reasonable railroad rates for all.

Congress responded with the Hepburn Act, which authorized the ICC to set maximum rail rates after finding that current ones were unreasonable. Thus, Roosevelt, the "trustbuster," tried to shift to his preferred role as federal "regulator. Public pressure, however, forced Roosevelt to continue trustbusting. In , he authorized a federal investigation of John D. This trust then controlled about 80 percent of U.

The investigators uncovered secret rebates from railroads and concluded that Standard Oil held "monopolistic control. The following year, the federal government filed a Sherman antitrust suit against the American Tobacco Company. This trust controlled almost 90 percent of U. American Tobacco had bought out over competitors, using such tactics as "fighting brands.

Even so, by the end of his second term, Roosevelt remained convinced that federal regulation of big business was the best way to tame the trusts. Filing lawsuits against individual monopolies to break them up was a costly and slow slog through the courts, he believed.

Besides, he held the view that "good" monopolies benefited the public with efficient distribution of new products. This angered both big business and Roosevelt. The corporation controlled half of all steel production and nearly 80 percent of iron-ore reserves in the country. Steel was a "menace to the country and should be destroyed. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie. Roosevelt, out of office but still active in politics, condemned the lawsuit. He said suing all trusts was "hopeless" and even if successful would "put the business of the country back into the middle of the 18th century.

The justices found both companies were guilty of monopolization in violation of the Sherman Act. It ordered them broken into numerous independent firms. The Supreme Court majority, however, also ruled that only "unreasonable" restraints of trade were illegal. For example, Standard Oil had been charged with such unreasonable practices as temporarily cutting prices to drive competitors out of business. Only when they behaved in unreasonable ways did they cross the line into illegality.

The controversy over what to do about monopolies erupted in the presidential election of He remained a trustbuster, sticking by his policy of strictly enforcing the Sherman Act by filing federal lawsuits to challenge monopolization.

Roosevelt wanted the Republican Party nomination. Roosevelt accepted monopolies as an inevitable part of a modern economy. He proposed, however, a federal commission to regulate them by inspecting their accounting books and setting maximum prices on their products.

He also wanted to impose rules for hours, wages, and working conditions. Roosevelt declared that "the enslavement of the people by the great corporations. Rather, Wilson wanted to eliminate monopolies by reviving vigorous competition through such measures as banking reform and tariff reduction.

Toward the end of the campaign, however, Wilson embraced the idea of a federal commission to stop monopolistic practices.

The fourth major candidate in was Socialist Eugene V. Debs believed that large enterprises were inevitable. The time is approaching when it will be no longer possible. Instead, as a socialist, he supported worker and public ownership of large entities. After Wilson won the election, he turned to Congress rather than the courts to deal with the monopoly problem. In , Congress passed the Clayton Act, a new antitrust law that defined more clearly illegal business practices such as anti-competitive:.

In other legislation, Congress created the Federal Trade Commission. In , the Supreme Court finally decided the U. Steel case begun in the Taft administration. The court ruled in favor of U. It found that U.