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The Role Of Reforms In The Progressive Era Of The United States

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The Progressive Era of the United States brought a variety of reforms. There were reform efforts in school systems, religion, social classes, and business. At the time the market was often dominated by big companies and trusts. Smaller businesses often found themselves being pushed out of business by the larger names. In this progressive era three presidents went about breaking up these trusts. Each president went about it in a different way. Theodore Roosevelt worked to break up the trust he considered “bad” but acknowledged the benefits of other on the economy. William Taft saw his role as president to uphold current law not to push forward reforms, and filed suits even against the trusts Roosevelt had labeled “good.” Woodrow Wilson had a “New Freedom” policy which not only went against trusts, but also aimed to weaken monopolies. Roosevelt and Taft’s policies on the amount of land and resources used by businesses also contrasted. …show more content…
Rockefeller, made statements about the downsides of economic competition, Roosevelt agreed with much of his evaluation. “The corporation has come to stay,” He conceded, acknowledging that the nation benefited from the economies of scales that “good” trust offered (Keene, 540). Yet he believed the government should break up “bad” trusts, which he defined as those that hurt the public interest (Keene, 540). Though he did file an anti-trust suit against Northern Securities, he left some companies untouched. “He did nothing, however, when Morgan bought Andrew Carnegie’s steel empire in 1901 to create U.S. Steel, a trust that employed over one million workers (Keene, 450).” Roosevelt tried to regulate big businesses instead of purely

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