Fill - Free fillable Square Deal Teddy Roosevelts p0523-531aspe-0517s3 10/17/02 8:54 AM (Caggia Social Studies) PDF form

Terms & Names

MAIN IDEA

•Upton Sinclair

•The Jungle

•Theodore

Roosevelt

•Square Deal

•Meat Inspection

Act

•Pure Food

and Drug Act

•conservation

•NAACP

As president, Theodore

Roosevelt worked to give

citizens a Square Deal

through progressive reforms.

As part of his Square Deal,

Roosevelt’s conservation

efforts made a permanent

impact on environmental

resources.

WHY IT MATTERS NOW

The Progressive Era 523

When muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair began research for

a novel in 1904, his focus was the human condition in the stock-

yards of Chicago. Sinclair intended his novel to reveal “the

breaking of human hearts by a system [that] exploits the labor of

men and women for proﬁts.” What most shocked readers in

Sinclair’s book The Jungle (1906), however, was the sickening

conditions of the meatpacking industry.

A PERSONAL

VOICE UPTON SINCLAIR

“ There would be meat that had tumbled out on the ﬂoor, in the

dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit

uncounted billions of consumption [tuberculosis] germs. There

would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; . . . and thousands

of rats would race about on it. . . . A man could run his hand over

these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of

rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poi-

soned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread,

and meat would go into the hoppers together.

”

—The Jungle

President Theodore Roosevelt, like many other readers, was nauseated by

Sinclair’s account. The president invited the author to visit him at the White

House, where Roosevelt promised that “the speciﬁc evils you point out shall, if

their existence be proved, and if I have the power, be eradicated.”

A Rough-Riding President

Theodore Roosevelt was not supposed to be president. In 1900, the young gover-

nor from New York was urged to run as McKinley’s vice-president by the state’s

political bosses, who found Roosevelt impossible to control. The plot to nominate

Roosevelt worked, taking him out of state ofﬁce. However, as vice-president,

One American's Story

Teddy Roosevelt’s

Square Deal

Upton Sinclair

poses with his

son at the time

of the writing of

The Jungle.

▼

p0523-531aspe-0517s3 10/17/02 8:54 AM Page 523

Page 1 of 9

When the

president spared

a bear cub on a

hunting expedition,

a toymaker

marketed a

popular new

product, the

teddy bear.

Teddy Roosevelt

enjoyed an active

lifestyle, as this

1902 photo

reveals.

Roosevelt stood a heartbeat away from becoming president. Indeed,

President McKinley had served barely six months of his second term before

he was assassinated, making Roosevelt the most powerful person in the

government.

ROOSEVELT’S RISE

Theodore Roosevelt was born into a wealthy New

York family in 1858. An asthma sufferer during his childhood, young Teddy

drove himself to accomplish demanding physical feats. As a teenager,

he mastered marksmanship and horseback riding. At Harvard College,

Roosevelt boxed and wrestled.

At an early age, the ambitious Roosevelt became a leader in New

York politics. After serving three terms in the New York State Assembly,

he became New York City’s police commissioner and then assistant secre-

tary of the U.S. Navy. The aspiring politician grabbed national attention,

advocating war against Spain in 1898. His volunteer cavalry brigade, the Rough

Riders, won public acclaim for its role in the battle at San Juan Hill in Cuba.

Roosevelt returned a hero and was soon elected governor of New York and then

later won the vice-presidency.

THE MODERN PRESIDENCY

When Roosevelt was thrust into the presidency in

1901, he became the youngest president ever at 42 years old. Unlike previous

presidents, Roosevelt soon dominated the news with his many exploits. While in

ofﬁce, Roosevelt enjoyed boxing, although one of his opponents blinded him in

the left eye. On another day, he galloped 100 miles on horseback, merely to prove

the feat possible.

In politics, as in sports, Roosevelt acted boldly, using his personality and pop-

ularity to advance his programs. His leadership and publicity campaigns helped

create the modern presidency, making him a model by which all future presidents

would be measured. Citing federal responsibility for the national welfare,

Roosevelt thought the government should assume control whenever states proved

incapable of dealing with problems. He explained, “It is the duty of the president

to act upon the theory that he is the steward of the people, and . . . to assume that

he has the legal right to do whatever the needs of the people demand, unless the

Constitution or the laws explicitly forbid him to do it.”

▼

524

p0523-531aspe-0517s3 10/17/02 8:54 AM Page 524

Page 2 of 9

Roosevelt saw the presidency as a “bully pulpit,” from which he could inﬂu-

ence the news media and shape legislation. If big business victimized workers,

then President Roosevelt would see to it that the common people received what

he called a Square Deal. This term was used to describe the various progressive

reforms sponsored by the Roosevelt administration.

Using Federal Power

Roosevelt’s study of history—he published the ﬁrst of his 44 books at the age of

24—convinced him that modern America required a powerful federal govern-

ment. “A simple and poor society can exist as a democracy on the basis of sheer

individualism,” Roosevelt declared, “but a rich and complex industrial society

cannot so exist. . . .” The young president soon met several challenges to his asser-

tion of federal power.

TRUSTBUSTING

By 1900, trusts—legal bodies created to hold stock in many

companies—controlled about four-ﬁfths of the industries in the United States.

Some trusts, like Standard Oil, had earned poor reputations with the public by the

use of unfair business practices. Many trusts lowered their prices to drive com-

petitors out of the market and then took advantage of the lack of competition to

jack prices up even higher. Although Congress had passed the Sherman Antitrust

Act in 1890, the act’s vague language made enforcement difﬁcult. As a result,

nearly all the suits ﬁled against the trusts under the Sherman Act were ineffective.

President Roosevelt did not believe that all trusts were harmful, but he sought

to curb the actions of those that hurt the public interest. The president concen-

trated his efforts on ﬁling suits under the Sherman Antitrust Act. In 1902,

Roosevelt made newspaper headlines as a trustbuster when he ordered the Justice

Department to sue the Northern Securities Company, which had established a

monopoly over northwestern railroads. In 1904, the Supreme Court dissolved the

company. Although the Roosevelt administration ﬁled 44 antitrust suits, winning

a number of them and breaking up some of the trusts, it was unable to slow the

merger movement in business.

The Progressive Era 525

Background

See trust on

page R47 in the

Economics

Handbook.

Analyzing

A. Answer

Roosevelt was

an active, force-

ful, and ener-

getic executive;

he used his

position to

shape legisla-

tion and inﬂu-

ence the media.

“THE LION-TAMER”

As part of his Square Deal, President Roosevelt aggressively

used the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 to attack big businesses

engaging in unfair practices. His victory over his ﬁrst target, the

Northern Securities Company, earned him a reputation as a

hard-hitting trustbuster committed to protecting the public interest.

This cartoon shows Roosevelt trying to tame the wild lions that

symbolize the great and powerful companies of 1904.

SKILLBUILDER

Analyzing Political Cartoons

What do the lions stand for?

Why are all the lions coming out of a door labeled “Wall St.”?

What do you think the cartoonist thinks about trustbusting? Cite

details from the cartoon that suppor t your interpretation.

SEE SKILLBUILDER HANDBOOK, PAGE R24.

MAIN IDEA

Synthesizing

What actions

and characteristics

of Teddy Roosevelt

contributed to his

reputation as the

ﬁrst modern

president?

p0523-531aspe-0517s3 10/17/02 8:54 AM Page 525

Page 3 of 9

1902 COAL STRIKE

When 140,000 coal miners in Pennsylvania went on strike

and demanded a 20 percent raise, a nine-hour workday, and the right to organize

a union, the mine operators refused to bargain. Five months into the strike, coal

reserves ran low. Roosevelt, seeing the need to intervene, called both sides to the

White House to talk, and eventually settled the strike. Irked by the “extraordinary

stupidity and bad temper” of the mine operators, he later confessed that only the

dignity of the presidency had kept him from taking one owner “by the seat of the

breeches” and tossing him out of the window.

Faced with Roosevelt’s threat to take over the mines, the opposing sides ﬁnal-

ly agreed to submit their differences to an arbitration commission—a third party

that would work with both sides to mediate the dispute. In 1903, the commission

issued its compromise settlement. The miners won a 10 percent pay hike and a

shorter, nine-hour workday. With this, however, they had to give up their

demand for a closed shop—in which all workers must belong to the union—and

their right to strike during the next three years.

President Roosevelt’s actions had demonstrated a new principle.

From then on, when a strike threatened the public welfare, the fed-

eral government was expected to intervene. In addition, Roosevelt’s

actions reﬂected the progressive belief that disputes could be settled

in an orderly way with the help of experts, such as those on the

arbitration commission.

RAILROAD REGULATION

Roosevelt’s real goal was federal regulation. In 1887,

Congress had passed the Interstate Commerce Act, which prohibited wealthy rail-

road owners from colluding to ﬁx high prices by dividing the business in a given

area. The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was set up to enforce the new

law but had little power. With Roosevelt’s urging, Congress passed the Elkins Act

in 1903, which made it illegal for railroad ofﬁcials to give, and shippers to receive,

rebates for using particular railroads. The act also speciﬁed

that railroads could not change set rates without notifying

the public.

The Hepburn Act of 1906 strictly limited the distribu-

tion of free railroad passes, a common form of bribery. It

also gave the ICC power to set maximum railroad rates.

Although Roosevelt had to compromise with conservative

senators who opposed the act, its passage boosted the gov-

ernment’s power to regulate the railroads.

Health and the Environment

President Roosevelt’s enthusiasm and his considerable skill

at compromise led to laws and policies that beneﬁted both

public health and the environment. He wrote, “We recog-

nize and are bound to war against the evils of today. The

remedies are partly economic and partly spiritual, partly to

be obtained by laws, and in greater part to be obtained by

individual and associated effort.”

REGULATING FOODS AND DRUGS

After reading The Jungle

by Upton Sinclair, Roosevelt responded to the public’s clam-

or for action. He appointed a commission of experts to inves-

tigate the meatpacking industry. The commission issued a

scathing report backing up Sinclair’s account of the disgust-

ing conditions in the industry. True to his word, in 1906

Roosevelt pushed for passage of the Meat Inspection Act,

526 C

HAPTER 17

“ In life, as in a

football game, the

principle . . . is:

Hit the line hard.”

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

MEAT INSPECTION

During the Progressive Era, peo-

ple worried about the kinds of

things that might fall—or walk—

into a batch of meat being

processed. Today, Americans

worry more about contamination

by unseen dangers, such as

E. coli bacteria, mad cow dis-

ease, and antibiotics or other

chemicals that may pose long-

range health risks to people.

In July 1996, Congress passed

the most extensive changes in

standards for meat inspection

since the Meat Inspection Act of

1906. The costs of the new,

more scientiﬁc inspections

amount to about a tenth of a

penny per pound of meat. The

FDA has also adopted restrictions

on importation of feed and live-

stock from other countries to pre-

vent the spread of disease.

Vocabulary

collude: to act

together secretly

to achieve an

illegal or deceitful

purpose

B. Answer From

that point on,

the federal gov-

ernment was

expected to play

a more active

role in settling

labor disputes.

MAIN IDEA

Analyzing

Effects

What was

signiﬁcant about

the way the 1902

coal strike was

settled?

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Page 4 of 9

The Progressive Era 527

Coal Mining in the Early 1900s

Most underground mines had

two shafts—an elevator shaft

(shown here) for transporting

workers and coal, and an air

shaft for ventilation.

The miners’ main

tool was the pick.

Many also used

drilling machines.

Donkeys or mules pulled the

coal cars to the elevators,

which transported the coal

to the surface.

Coal played a key role in America’s industrial boom around the turn of the centur y,

providing the United States with about 90 percent of its energy. Miners often had

to dig for coal hundreds of feet below the earth’s sur face. The work in these

mines was among the hardest and most dangerous in the world. Progressive Era

reforms helped improve conditions for miners, as many won wage increases and

shorter work hours.

The coal mines employed

thousands of children, like this

boy pictured in 1909. In 1916,

progressives helped secure

passage of a child labor law that

forbade interstate commerce of

goods produced by children

under the age of 14.

Like these men

working in 1908,

miners typically

spent their days

in dark, cramped

spaces underground.

▼

Most mines used a room-and-pillar method for extracting

coal. This entailed digging out “rooms” of coal off a series

of tunnels, leaving enough coal behind to form a pillar that

prevented the room from collapsing.

pillars

room

elevator

shaft

room

air shaft

▼

p0523-531aspe-0517s3 10/17/02 8:54 AM Page 527

Page 5 of 9

which dictated strict cleanliness requirements for meatpackers and created the pro-

gram of federal meat inspection that was in use until it was replaced by more

sophisticated techniques in the 1990s.

The compromise that won the act’s passage, however, left the government

paying for the inspections and did not require companies to label their canned

goods with date-of-processing information. The compromise also granted meat-

packers the right to appeal negative decisions in court.

PURE FOOD AND DRUG ACT

Before any federal regulations were established

for advertising food and drugs, manufacturers had claimed that their products

accomplished everything from curing cancer to growing hair. In addition, popu-

lar children’s medicines often contained opium, cocaine, or alcohol. In a series of

lectures across the country, Dr. Harvey Washington

Wiley, chief chemist at the Department of Agriculture,

criticized manufacturers for adding harmful preserva-

tives to food and brought needed attention to this issue.

In 1906, Congress passed the Pure Food and

Drug Act, which halted the sale of contaminated

foods and medicines and called for truth in labeling.

Although this act did not ban harmful products out-

right, its requirement of truthful labels reﬂected the

progressive belief that given accurate information, peo-

ple would act wisely.

CONSERVATION AND NATURAL RESOURCES

Before Roosevelt’s presidency, the federal government

had paid very little attention to the nation’s natural

resources. Despite the establishment of the U.S. Forest

Bureau in 1887 and the subsequent withdrawal from

public sale of 45 million acres of timberlands for a

national forest reserve, the government stood by while

private interests gobbled up the shrinking wilderness.

528 C

HAPTER 17

Government

workers inspect

meat as it moves

through the

packinghouse.

A typical late-

19th-century

product

advertisement.

▼

C. Answer Both

acts created

regulations that

protected con-

sumers’ health.

MAIN IDEA

Comparing

What

similarities did the

Meat Inspection

Act and Pure Food

and Drug Act

share?

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Page 6 of 9

In the late 19th century Americans had shortsightedly exploited their natur-

al environment. Pioneer farmers leveled the forests and plowed up the prairies.

Ranchers allowed their cattle to overgraze the Great Plains. Coal companies clut-

tered the land with refuse from mines. Lumber companies ignored the effect of

their logging operations on ﬂood control and neglected to plant trees to replace

those they had cut down. Cities dumped untreated sewage and industrial wastes

into rivers, poisoning the streams and creating health hazards.

CONSERVATION MEASURES

Roosevelt condemned the view that America’s

resources were endless and made conservation a primary concern. John Muir, a

naturalist and writer with whom Roosevelt camped in California’s Yosemite

National Park in 1903, persuaded the president to set aside 148 million acres of

forest reserves. Roosevelt also set aside 1.5 million acres of water-power sites and

another 80 million acres of land that experts from the U.S. Geological Survey

would explore for mineral and water resources. Roosevelt also established more

than 50 wildlife sanctuaries and several national parks.

True to the Progressive belief in using experts, in 1905 the president named

Gifford Pinchot as head of the U.S. Forest Service. A professional conservationist,

Pinchot had administrative skill as well as the latest scientiﬁc and technical infor-

mation. He advised Roosevelt to conserve forest and grazing lands by keeping

large tracts of federal land exempt from private sale.

Conservationists like Roosevelt and Pinchot, however, did not share the

views of Muir, who advocated complete preservation of the wilderness. Instead,

conservation to them meant that some wilderness areas would be preserved

while others would be developed for the common good. Indeed, Roosevelt’s fed-

eral water projects transformed some dry wilderness areas to make agriculture

possible. Under the National Reclamation Act of 1902, known as the Newlands

40°N

30°N

20°N

130°W

110°W

90°W80°W70°W

150°W160°W 140°W

Created 1909–1996

Created 1901–1908

Created 1872–1900

Federal Conservation Lands

0 200 400 kilometers

0 200 400 miles

The Progressive Era 529

Federal Conservation Lands, 1872–1996

GEOGRAPHY SKILLBUILDER

Region Prior to 1901, which regions had the

greatest amount of conservation lands?

Human Enviroment Interaction Describe

the effects of Roosevelt’s conservation efforts

and the impact he had on the environment?

Skillbuilder

Answers

1. The West.

2. Roosevelt

helped establish

a strong conser-

vative move-

ment in the

United States.

p0523-531aspe-0517s3 10/17/02 8:54 AM Page 529

Page 7 of 9

Act, money from the sale of public lands in the West funded

large-scale irrigation projects, such as the Roosevelt Dam in

Arizona and the Shoshone Dam in Wyoming. The Newlands

Act established the precedent that the federal government

would manage the precious water resources of the West.

Roosevelt and Civil Rights

Roosevelt’s concern for the land and its inhabitants was not

matched in the area of civil rights. Though Roosevelt's father

had supported the North, his mother, Martha, may well

have been the model for the Southern belle Scarlet O’Hara in

Margaret Mitchell's famous novel, Gone with the Wind. In

almost two terms as president, Roosevelt—like most other

progressives—failed to support civil rights for African

Americans. He did, however, support a few individual African

Americans.

Despite opposition from whites, Roosevelt appointed an

African American as head of the Charleston, South Carolina,

customhouse. In another instance, when some whites in

Mississippi refused to accept the black postmistress he had

appointed, he chose to close the station rather than give in.

In 1906, however, Roosevelt angered many African Americans

when he dismissed without question an entire regiment of

African-American soldiers accused of conspiracy in protect-

ing others charged with murder in Brownsville, Texas.

As a symbolic gesture, Roosevelt invited Booker T.

Washington to dinner at the White House. Washington—

head of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, an all-

black training school—was then the African-American leader most respected by

powerful whites. Washington faced opposition, however, from other African

530 C

HAPTER 17

Civil rights leaders

gather at the 1905

Niagara Falls

conference.

HISTORICAL

▼

D. Answer

Roosevelt

worked for con-

servation, pre-

serving some

resources but

allowing some

to be used, too.

MAIN IDEA

Summarizing

Summarize

Roosevelt’s

approach to

environmental

problems.

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

The naturalist John Muir visited

the Yosemite region of central

California in 1868 and made it

his home base for a period of six

years while he traveled through-

out the West.

Muir was the ﬁrst to suggest

that Yosemite’s spectacular land

formations had been shaped by

glaciers. Today the park’s impres-

sive cliffs, waterfalls, lakes, and

meadows draw sports enthusi-

asts and tourists in all seasons.

p0523-531aspe-0517s3 10/17/02 8:54 AM Page 530

Page 8 of 9

Americans, such as W. E. B. Du Bois, for his accommodation

of segregationists and for blaming black poverty on blacks

and urging them to accept discrimination.

Persistent in his criticism of Washington’s ideas, Du Bois

renewed his demands for immediate social and economic

equality for African Americans. In his 1903 book The Souls of

Black Folk, Du Bois wrote of his opposition to Washington’s

position.

A PERSONAL VOICE W. E. B. DU BOIS

“ So far as Mr. Washington preaches Thrift, Patience, and

Industrial Training for the masses, we must hold up his hands

and strive with him. . . . But so far as Mr. Washington apolo-

gizes for injustice, North or South, does not rightly value the

privilege and duty of voting, belittles the emasculating

effects of caste distinctions, and opposes the higher training

and ambition of our brighter minds,—so far as he, the South,

or the Nation, does this,—we must unceasingly and ﬁrmly

oppose them.

”

—The Souls of Black Folk

Du Bois and other advocates of equality for African

Americans were deeply upset by the apparent progressive

indifference to racial injustice. In 1905 they held a civil rights

conference in Niagara Falls, and in 1909 a number of African

Americans joined with prominent white reformers in New

York to found the NAACP—the National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP, which had

over 6,000 members by 1914, aimed for nothing less than full

equality among the races. That goal, however, found little sup-

port in the Progressive Movement, which focused on the needs

of middle-class whites. The two presidents who followed

Roosevelt also did little to advance the goal of racial equality.

The Progressive Era 531

•Upton Sinclair

•The Jungle

•Theodore Roosevelt

•Square Deal

•Meat Inspection Act

•Pure Food and Drug Act

•conservation

•NAACP

1. TERMS & NAMES For each term or name, write a sentence explaining its signiﬁcance.

MAIN IDEA

2. TAKING NOTES

Create ﬁve problem-solution diagrams

like the one below to show how the

following problems were addressed

during Roosevelt’s presidency:

(a) 1902 coal strike, (b) Northern

Securities Company monopoly,

(d) exploitation of the environment,

and (e) racial injustice.

Write headlines announcing the

solutions.

CRITICAL THINKING

3. FORMING GENERALIZATIONS

In what ways do you think the

progressive belief in using experts

played a role in shaping Roosevelt’s

reforms? Refer to details from the

text. Think About:

• Roosevelt’s use of experts to

help him tackle political, eco-

nomic, and environmental prob-

lems

• how experts’ ﬁndings affected

legislative actions

4. EVALUATING

Research the coal strike of

1902. Do you think Roosevelt’s

intervention was in favor of the

strikers or of the mine operators?

Why?

5. ANALYZING ISSUES

Why did W. E. B. Du Bois oppose

Booker T. Washington’s views on

racial discrimination?

Problems Solutions

Vocabulary

accommodation:

adapting or

making

adjustments in

order to satisfy

someone else

Background

The Niagara

Movement was

comprised of 29

black intellectuals.

They met secretly

in 1905 to

compose a civil

rights manifesto.

W. E. B. DU BOIS

1868–1963

In 1909, W. E. B. Du Bois helped

to establish the NAACP and

entered into the forefront of the

early U.S. civil rights movement.

However, in the 1920s, he faced a

power struggle with the NAACP’s

executive secretary, Walter White.

Ironically, Du Bois had retreated

to a position others saw as dan-

gerously close to that of Booker

T. Washington. Arguing for a sep-

arate economy for African

Americans, Du Bois made a dis-

tinction, which White rejected,

between enforced and voluntar y

segregation. By mid-century, Du

Bois was outside the mainstream

of the civil rights movement. His

work remained largely ignored

until after his death in 1963.

p0523-531aspe-0517s3 10/17/02 8:54 AM Page 531

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