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ROOSEVELT, Theodore. Typed letter signed ("Theodore Roosevelt"), as President, Oyster Bay, N. Y., 22 September 1903. 1½ pages, 4to, White House stationery, with original envelope.
"RICH CORPORATIONS" AND "LABOR UNION PEOPLE" ARE "SORE AND ANGRY AT ME" BECAUSE HE INSISTS ON A "SQUARE DEAL"
A particularly forceful statement of Roosevelt's determination to act as an honest broker between big business and big labor. A better statement of Roosevelt's "square deal" philosophy would be hard to find. "Sometimes I feel a little melancholy," he tells Sewall, "because it is so hard to persuade people to accept equal justice. The very rich corporation people are sore and angry because I refuse to allow a case like that of the Northern Securities Company to go unchallenged by the law; and in the same way the turbulent and extreme labor union people are sore and angry because I insist that every man, whether he belong to a labor union or not, shall be given a square deal in Government employment. Now I believe in rich people who act squarely, and in labor unions which are managed with wisdom and justice; but when either employee or employer, laboring man or capitalist, goes wrong, I have to cinch him, and that is all there is to it."
The Northern Securities case was the centerpiece of his philosophy in action. He used the prosecution of this great monopoly--owned by J. P. Morgan, E. H. Harriman and other leading corporate titans--to show how he wanted to use the powers of the Presidency. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1904, which decided the company was a monopoly in violation of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act and had to be broken up. But Roosevelt was just as wary of the threat of big labor, and he persoannly mediated in national labor disputes that threatened to become violent, such as the great 1902 coal strike. Roosevelt met with the principles of both sides and hammered out a compromise settlement.
"RICH CORPORATIONS" AND "LABOR UNION PEOPLE" ARE "SORE AND ANGRY AT ME" BECAUSE HE INSISTS ON A "SQUARE DEAL"
A particularly forceful statement of Roosevelt's determination to act as an honest broker between big business and big labor. A better statement of Roosevelt's "square deal" philosophy would be hard to find. "Sometimes I feel a little melancholy," he tells Sewall, "because it is so hard to persuade people to accept equal justice. The very rich corporation people are sore and angry because I refuse to allow a case like that of the Northern Securities Company to go unchallenged by the law; and in the same way the turbulent and extreme labor union people are sore and angry because I insist that every man, whether he belong to a labor union or not, shall be given a square deal in Government employment. Now I believe in rich people who act squarely, and in labor unions which are managed with wisdom and justice; but when either employee or employer, laboring man or capitalist, goes wrong, I have to cinch him, and that is all there is to it."
The Northern Securities case was the centerpiece of his philosophy in action. He used the prosecution of this great monopoly--owned by J. P. Morgan, E. H. Harriman and other leading corporate titans--to show how he wanted to use the powers of the Presidency. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1904, which decided the company was a monopoly in violation of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act and had to be broken up. But Roosevelt was just as wary of the threat of big labor, and he persoannly mediated in national labor disputes that threatened to become violent, such as the great 1902 coal strike. Roosevelt met with the principles of both sides and hammered out a compromise settlement.