Trust-Busting: Theodore Roosevelt’s Effectiveness in
Regulating Big Business
by Barry Wright
Essay: Trust-Busting: Theodore Roosevelt’s Effectiveness in Regulating Big Business
Pages: 10
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Before a series of antitrust acts and laws were instituted by the federal government, it was not illegal for
businesses to use any means to eliminate competition in late nineteenth-century America. Production technology
was now advanced to the point that supply would surpass product demand. As competition in any given market
increased, more and more companies joined together in either trusts or holding companies to bring market
dominance under their control (Cengage 2). As President Theodore Roosevelt was sworn into office in 1901, he led
America into action with forceful government solutions (“Online” 1). Roosevelt effectively regulated offending
business giants by the formation of the Department of Commerce and Labor, the Bureau of Corporations, and
antitrust lawsuits.
Trusts were essentially agreements between businesses of any certain market to be anti-competitive in relation to
one another. The problematic methods and techniques they used included rigorously lowering prices, “buying out
competitors, forcing customers to sign long-term contracts, [and] forcing customers to buy unwanted products to
receive other goods (“Sherman” 1). For example, financier J. P. Morgan captured the business opportunity
presented by the Depression of 1893, which occurred for the same reason as the Depression of 1873—more
goods had been produced than could be sold as a result of excessive expansion. Morgan acquired many railroads
that had declared bankruptcy (“Domination” 2), as well as buying Andrew Carnegie’s Carnegie Steel in 1901
(Keesee 356).
To differentiate monopolies from trusts, it must be said that single companies were able to form monopolies when
in control of “nearly all of one type of product or service… [This] affects the consu...