inadequate for a 20th-century ur- labor laws were strengthened and
ban state . Years before, in 1873, the new ones adopted, raising age
celebrated author Mark Twain had limits, shortening work hours, re-
exposed American society to criti- stricting night work, and requiring
cal scrutiny in The Gilded Age . Now, school attendance .
trenchant articles dealing with
trusts, high finance, impure foods,
ROOSEVELT’S REFORMS
and abusive railroad practices be-
gan to appear in the daily newspa- By the early 20th century, most
pers and in such popular magazines of the larger cities and more than
as McClure’s and Collier’s . Their au- half the states had established an thors, such as the journalist Ida M . eight-hour day on public works .
Tarbell, who crusaded against the Equally important were the work-
Standard Oil Trust, became known man’s compensation laws, which
as “muckrakers .”
made employers legally responsible
In his sensational novel, The for injuries sustained by employees
Jungle, Upton Sinclair exposed un- at work . New revenue laws were also sanitary conditions in the great enacted, which, by taxing inheri-Chicago meat-packing houses and tances, incomes, and the property
condemned the grip of the beef or earnings of corporations, sought
trust on the nation’s meat supply . to place the burden of government
Theodore Dreiser, in his novels The on those best able to pay .
Financier and The Titan, made it
It was clear to many people
easy for laymen to understand the — notably President Theodore
machinations of big business . Frank Roosevelt and Progressive leaders in
Norris’s The Octopus assailed amor- the Congress (foremost among them
al railroad management; his The Pit Wisconsin Senator Robert La Fol-
depicted secret manipulations on lette) — that most of the problems
the Chicago grain market . Lincoln reformers were concerned about
Steffens’s The Shame of the Cities could be solved only if dealt with on bared local political corruption . a national scale . Roosevelt declared
This “literature of exposure” roused his determination to give all the
people to action .
American people a “Square Deal .”
The hammering impact of un-
During his first term, he initiated
compromising writers and an in- a policy of increased government su-
creasingly aroused public spurred pervision through the enforcement
political leaders to take practical of antitrust laws . With his back-
measures . Many states enacted laws ing, Congress passed the Elkins Act
to improve the conditions under (1903), which greatly restricted the
which people lived and worked . At railroad practice of giving rebates
the urging of such prominent so- to favored shippers . The act made
cial critics as Jane Addams, child published rates the lawful standard,
196
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
and shippers equally liable with Commission real authority in regu-
railroads for rebates . Meanwhile, lating rates, extended the commis-
Congress had created a new Cabi- sion’s jurisdiction, and forced the
net Department of Commerce and railroads to surrender their inter-
Labor, which included a Bureau of locking interests in steamship lines
Corporations empowered to investi- and coal companies .
gate the affairs of large business ag-
Other congressional measures
gregations .
carried the principle of federal con-
Roosevelt won acclaim as a trol still further . The Pure Food and
“trust-buster,” but his actual atti- Drug Act of 1906 prohibited the use
tude toward big business was com- of any “deleterious drug, chemical,
plex . Economic concentration, he or preservative” in prepared medi-
believed, was inevitable . Some trusts cines and foods . The Meat Inspec-
were “good,” some “bad .” The task of tion Act of the same year mandated
government was to make reasonable federal inspection of all meat-pack-
distinctions . When, for example, the ing establishments engaged in inter-
Bureau of Corporations discovered state commerce .
in 1907 that the American Sugar Re-
Conservation of the nation’s nat-
fining Company had evaded import ural resources, managed develop-
duties, subsequent legal actions re- ment of the public domain, and the
covered more than $4 million and reclamation of wide stretches of ne-
convicted several company officials . glected land were among the other
The Standard Oil Company was in- major achievements of the Roosevelt
dicted for receiving secret rebates era . Roosevelt and his aides were
from the Chicago and Alton Rail- more than conservationists, but giv-
road, convicted, and fined a stagger- en the helter-skelter exploitation of
ing $29 million .
public resources that had preceded
Roosevelt’s striking personality them, conservation loomed large on
and his trust-busting activities cap- their agenda . Whereas his predeces-
tured the imagination of the ordinary sors had set aside 18,800,000 hect-
individual; approval of his progres- ares of timberland for preservation
sive measures cut across party lines . and parks, Roosevelt increased the
In addition, the abounding prosper- area to 59,200,000 hectares . They
ity of the country at this time led also began systematic efforts to pre-
people to feel satisfied with the party vent forest fires and to re-timber de-in office . He won an easy victory in nuded tracts .
the 1904 presidential election .
Emboldened by a sweeping elec-
TAFT AND WILSON
toral triumph, Roosevelt called for
stronger railroad regulation . In June Roosevelt’s popularity was at its 1906 Congress passed the Hepburn peak as the campaign of 1908 neared,
Act . It gave the Interstate Commerce but he was unwilling to break the
197