American History Chapter 16-3
Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal
Theodore Roosevelt
• Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901.– Bully pulpit: T.R. used the presidency as a platform for change.
Roosevelt’s Presidency• 1902 - Roosevelt broke up a major coal strike by
threatening to take control of the mines.• 1904 campaign slogan: The Square Deal.– Promised all Americans fair treatment.
• Used the Sherman Antitrust Act to bust up bad trusts.• Elkins Act: Protected RR customers from unfair rates.• Hepburn Act: Gave the ICC the power to regulate
interstate trade.
Consumer Protection Under T.R.• Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle: Exposed the meat
packing industry & their unsanitary practices.– Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act: Required
federal inspection of meat passing over state lines.– Pure Food & Drug Act: Forbade the making & sale of food
& medicines that contained harmful ingredients.• Also required ingredient labels.
Sinclair
Environmental Protection• John Muir: Naturalist who encouraged the gov’t. to
preserve nature.– “God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought,
disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.” John Muir
• Gifford Pinchot: First to use the word conservation in terms of protecting natural environment.
Roosevelt’s Greatest Legacy
• President Roosevelt believed that natural resources were limited & and their use needed to be controlled.– Newlands Reclamation Act: Provided federal irrigation
projects to make arid land more useful.– U.S. Forest Service: Est. 1905 – Added 150 million acres of
controlled & regulated national forests.– Antiquities Act: 1906 law that led to 18 new national
monuments during Roosevelt’s presidency.
Gila National Forest 1907
Devil’s Tower 1908
Grand Canyon 1908
Muir Woods 1908