Politics and Law

Northern Securities Co. v. United States …179

Progressive Party Documents …192

For many years after the first steam- or water-powered machines were installed in English textile factories in the second half of the eighteenth century, most government leaders believed they had no legitimate business interfering with private individuals conducting their business.

But as the nineteenth century wore on, evidence mounted that many workers, especially children, were being abused in factories by being forced to work long hours for low pay and under dangerous, unhealthy conditions. Slowly, advocates of workers' rights succeeded in passing laws that regulated how many hours children could be forced to work, and established a minimum age for factory employees.

At the end of the nineteenth century, attitudes toward the business practices of some owners also came under scrutiny. The government of President Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) in particular advocated government action to make sure that a few large business owners did not stifle competition and raise prices for everyone. Roosevelt was part of what was called the Progressive movement, the notion that government regulation was required as a counterbalance to the immense economic power of the very large businesses, such as the Standard Oil Company, owned by John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937). The Progressives acted both through politics, by running for office, and through the courts, by enforcing federal laws that barred monopolies (companies that controlled whole industries through a complex web of corporate ownership called trusts).

In 1904, one such monopoly, the Northern Securities Company, was taken to court by the government of President Roosevelt. The suit claimed that the firm, which had been organized to acquire stock in two railroads, the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern, violated the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act and effectively discouraged competition from other railroads in the northern part of the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the government, and Northern Securities, owned by J. P. Morgan (1837–1913) and James J. Hill (1838–1916), was forced to break up.

Although Roosevelt stepped away from the national scene after his second term ended in 1909, he returned to presidential politics in 1912. Unhappy with the performance of his hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft (1857–1930), Roosevelt ran against him in the Republican primaries, but lost. Undeterred, Roosevelt ran as the third-party candidate of the Progressive Party, also known as the Bull Moose Party. The party's platform and Roosevelt's acceptance speech highlight the continuation of the Progressive movement.