Name
U.S. History: Book 2
Lesson 27
Handout 27 (page 1)
Date
-
Controlling the Trusts
Part A. For homework, write a sentence for each of the following items that identifies the
main point of the reform and tells how it was an attempt to control the power of the trusts.
1. Sixteenth Amendment:
2. Seventeenth Amendment:
3. Pure Food and Drug Act:
4. Hepburn Act:
5. Nineteenth Amendment:
6. Meat Inspection Act:
7. Underwood-Simmons Tariff:
8. Federal Trade Commission:
9. Clayton Antitrust Act:
10. Federal Reserve Act:
11. Direct primaries:
12. City manager form of government:
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139
Name
U.S. History: Book 2
Lesson 27
Date
27
(page
2)
Handout
Part B. Use the following documents as a resource in completing the class activity that
follows.
As measures calculated to strengthen the working class in its fight for the realization of its
ultimate aim, the cooperative commonwealth, and to increase its power against capitalist
oppression, we advocate and pledge ourselves and our elected officers to the following
program:
(1) The collective ownership and democratic management of railroads, wire and
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
wireless telegraphs and telephones, express service, steamboat lines, and all other
social means of transportation and communication and of all large-scale indus
tries.
The immediate acquirement by the municipalities, the states or the federal
government of all grain elevators, stock yards, storage warehouses, and other
distributing agencies, in order to reduce the present extortionate cost of living.
The extension of the public domain to include mines, quarries, oil wells, forests,
and water power.
The further conservation and development of natural resources for the use and
benefit of all the people.
The collective ownership of land where practicable, and the appropriation by
taxation of the annual rental value of all land held for speculation and exploitation.
The collective ownership and democratic management of the banking and cur
rency system.
1
—Socialist Party Platform of 1912
I take my stand absolutely, where every progressive ought to take his stand, on the
proposition that private monopoly is indefensible and intolerable. And there I will fight my
battle. And I know how to fight it. Everybody who has even read the newspapers knows the
means by which these men built up their power and created these monopolies. Any
decently equipped lawyer can suggest to you statutes by which the whole business can be
stopped....
I have been told by a great many men that the Idea I have, that by restoring
competition you can restore industrial freedom, is based upon a failure to observe the
actual happenings of the last three decades in this country; because, they say, it Is just free
competition that has made it possible for the big to crush the little.
I reply, it is not free competition that has done that; it is illicit competition. It is
competition that the law ought to stop, and can stop—this crushing of the little man.
2
—Woodrow Wilson
When Theodore Roosevelt brought suit against the Northern Securities Company, the
great consolidated railroad system, J. P. Morgan, the trust’s banker, called the White House
and told the President: “If we have done anything wrong, send your man to my man and
they can work it out.”
3
‘Henry Steele Commager, Documents ofAmerican History (New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, Inc., 1958), 251,
Document 382.
EdwIn C. Rozwenc, Roosevelt, Wilson and the Trusts (Lexington. MA: D. C. Heath & Co., 1950), 56—57.
2
Forrest McDonald, et aL, The Last Best Hope (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1972). 677—678.
3
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140
I
Name
U.S. History: Book 2
Lesson 27
Handout 27 (page 3)
Date
,V/i
“‘///!‘
—,---.
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FIgure 1.27 LewIs Paul Todd and Merle Cur
tis, Rise of the American Nation (New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972), 539.
1. In the space below each Individual or group, write one sentence that states the
Individual’s or party’s approach to dealing with the trusts. Use the documents In this
handout as your source of Information.
a. Socialists
b. Woodrow Wilson
c. Theodore Roosevelt
d. J. P Morgan
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141
Name
U.S. History: Book 2
Lesson 27
Handout 27 (page 4)
Date
-
2. Place each of the above viewpoints on a continuum from left (most drastic) to right
(least drastic).
3. List the twelve terms from your homework assignment below. After each, indicate the
letter from above that most correctly indicates its approach to dealing with the trusts.
a.
b.
c.
d.
C.
f.
g.
h.
1.
j.
k.
1.
4. Finally, write one sentence that shows how the national and local governments
approached the problem of controlling trusts.
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142