

#Big business political cartoon full#
In his first full term, Roosevelt became even more progressive. Roosevelt’s 56% of the popular vote made him the victor by the highest margin of any president since Andrew Jackson. He easily won the election in 1904, defeating conservative Democrat Alton Parker. Roosevelt’s willingness to stand against big business made him popular with the public, which was tired of monopolies and industrial abuses. This political cartoon demonstrates the high tensions during the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902. The Anthracite Coal Strike represented the first time a president had listened to both sides involved in a strike, labor and business, before making a decision. The management then agreed to a settlement. Instead, he sent the United States Army to take over the coal mines. The owners asked Roosevelt to send in troops to help them. He called a White House conference with representatives from both the owners and workers, but the owners refused to speak to the strike leaders. Roosevelt chose to do something different.

In previous strikes in United States history, the government had sided with management. Members of the United Mine Workers went on strike, demanding more pay and fewer hours. Roosevelt also demonstrated his willingness to go up against big business with his actions during the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902. Exxon Mobil Corporation has posted the highest quarterly profits of any corporation in United States history. In 1999, those two companies reunited and formed Exxon Mobil Corporation. Two of the companies created when Standard Oil broke up in 1911 became Exxon and Mobil. Roosevelt was sending the business world a message: if its leaders did not accept government regulations on industry, their companies could and would be broken by antitrust actions. Roosevelt received the nickname “Trustbuster,” even though he truly hesitated to break up companies. Roosevelt’s government launched forty-three more antitrust actions, including one against Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. After the case went to the Supreme Court, the government emerged victorious and the company was broken into separate railroads. Roosevelt’s administration accused the company of restraining trade. But in February, 1902 Roosevelt’s administration undertook an antitrust action against Northern Securities Company, a holding company that controlled all the major railroads from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest. He generally preferred regulation to breaking up corporations through antitrust. When President Roosevelt first spoke to the nation, he told the people that big business was good, but that it needed to be regulated. This 1901 political cartoon decries the immense industrial power held by John D. His ascendency to the presidency at 42 made him the youngest person to become President of the United States. Roosevelt, who served as William McKinley’s vice-president became president when McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist. Roosevelt was a New York old-money aristocrat who entered politics at an early age, first achieving national fame as a hero in the Spanish-American War. Historians generally agree that progressivism entered the national political arena when Theodore Roosevelt became President in 1901.
#Big business political cartoon download#
Download the film that’s located at:Ĭan we imbed this film directly into the course? It’s open source content-with the national archives. See actual motion picture footage of the Exposition and of McKinley. Learn more about the Exposition and McKinley’s assassination at the University of Buffalo Library’s website commemorating the centennial of the Pan-American Exposition. Following the assassination, Congress requested that the Secret Service begin providing physical protection to the president. Anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot McKinley twice at point-blank range. President McKinley was assassinated on September 6, 1901, while attending the Pan-American Exposition (a World’s Fair) in Buffalo, New York.
