Roosevelt vs Wilson
...hey didn’t receive enough money for their crops. Unfortunately prices fell drastically because of overproduction after the civil war. Many were also forced to sell early in the season because of overdue debts and or because they had no reliable storage units for their crops. Southern farmers also hated the railroad because they believed they were greedy monopolies that charged as much as possible to deliver their crops to rural America and to the market. Southern farmers also hated banks because they charged higher interest rates than the northeast. Populist drafted a platform that boldly called for governmental action to aid the victims of industrialization. It is also important to note that many of the populist were part of the K.K.K. Theodore Roosevelt became president upon the death of William Mckinley. Many Americans found Roosevelt appealing because of the buoyant optimism and energy. Roosevelt was the first president to challenge and succeed in breaking apart a powerful corporation. Roosevelt did not believe big corporations were bad for the economy but instead were capable of stimulating the economy. He preferred to impose regulations on corporations (which he called trust busting) instead of breaking them up. For example, In February 1902, Roosevelt advised Attorney General Philander C. Knox to seek dissolution of the Northern Securities Company for violating the Sherman Act. The Northern Securities Company, a railroad monopoly in the northwest, included very wealthy personal like J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, and railroad managers James J. Hill and Edward H Harriman. In 1904, the Supreme Court agreed the Sherman Act could be applied to the Northern Securities Act and ordered it dissolved. Another example of his progressiveness is when Roosevelt and Gefford Pinchot (chief advisor on natural resources) nearly quadrupled the land under federal protection. They hoped to provide for the needs of the present and still leave resources for the future by not only preserving wild and beautiful lands but also the careful planned use of resources. Woodrow Wilson believed in a party government and an active role for the president in policymaking. Wilson depicted monopolies itself as the problem, not the misbehavior of individual corporations. He believed breaking up monopolies and restoring the completion would produce better products and lower prices. He also believed because monopolies were faced with regulations they would eventually aim to control the regulator (the federal government). Wilson first attacked tariff reform, arguing that high tariff rates fueled the creation of monopolies by reducing competition. Later congress passed the Underwood Tariff in October 191...