Roosevelt and Taft - Jenn

                Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest president to win an election, and he believed in the rising philosophy of Social Darwinism.  Roosevelt formed a reform program called the Square Deal, in which he tried to keep the “common” people safe from the supremacy of big business.  He was a strong believer of regulating big businesses; he didn’t believe it would be for the benefit of the nation as a whole to eradicate them.  The Sherman Antitrust Act was put into effect on behalf of this argument to regulate trusts and prevent these businesses from turning into monopolies.  Another problem that presented itself during his presidency was the Coal Strike of 1902.  A group of labors called the United Mine Workers went on strike in the eastern mines of Pennsylvania, demanding increased pay with better working conditions, less hours, and the right to establish an effective union.  He reasoned with them, and they finally agreed upon arbitration, which was the interference by an outside party to negotiate a settlement.  In this case, the outside party was the federal government, and this became one of the first steps in letting the national government act as an advisor in uncontainable situations like this. 

                In this time period, consumer protection was of the utmost importance.  Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle had many people outraged and sick of what was happening in the meatpacking industry.  In order to ease and retain the citizens’ piece of mind, Roosevelt helped pass the Meat Inspection Act, which required that the government inspects the meat being sold, and that the Agriculture Department is in charge of setting what rules and criteria that the companies must abide by.  On the same day, the Pure Food and Drug Act was also passed to ensure that all labels on drug containers and food packages are authentic.  Another situation that Roosevelt became passionate about was the conservation of nature.  He implemented around 100 million acres of forests to the national reservations and set up five new national parks.  Roosevelt really did what he could to please the “common” folk.

                William Howard Taft was the next president in office after Roosevelt.  Taft had made some dumb decisions during his presidency, but nothing was more obstructive than the Payne-Aldrich Tariff.  This tariff was a compromise between two contradictory acts that cut and raised taxes.  Naturally, this tariff didn’t solve anything, and caused more problems than it did solutions.  Roosevelt had warned that something like this might cause the Republican Party to split, and later on they did.  It is said that Taft had abandoned the application of progressivism by doing many things Roosevelt disagreed with.  One of the most important things that he wanted was to completely break apart trusts, and he had launched an antitrust lawsuit against U.S Steel.  This completely went against Roosevelt’s ideals, and so he eventually lost his support.  Taft did complete a few good actions during his presidency though.  He established the Children’s Bureau to investigate the injustices of child labor and present evidence of this publically to raise awareness.