A railway rate bill was passed, forbidding under severe penalties the fraud of rebates. A general pure food law was passed, penalizing the act of adulteration, and requiring that every article of medicine or food should be labeled and sold for just what it was. With these and several other measures, corporation fraud was thus brought to a halt.
At this period Roosevelt was a flaming fire. His spirit was as a fierce blaze consuming the materialism that had crept from the ranks of business into public life. Popular grievances against unjust exploitation by leaders of industry became to him the signal to attack. His ordering of the suit of dissolution against the Northern Securities Company subjected him to the enmity of powerful men, yet before a short time passed the opinion became general that his decision had been vital to the public good.
He aroused the bitter opposition of Big Business by his successful endeavors to control it, but time proved that by his act on behalf of the people he had saved the vested interests from the wholesale division by Congress of such monopolies had they been formed.
While he was the first of our Presidents to come into conflict with corporate power, he nevertheless favored and promoted legitimate business, and he stood for the protection of American industries from the cheap labor of Europe.
His suit for the dissolution of the Standard Oil Company was one of the most significant acts of his administration. This suit was not brought to a successful conclusion until 1911, but the credit for its prosecution is due mainly to him.
In all these measures Roosevelt was simply carrying out his doctrine of the square deal, which he began to preach when he assumed public office and which in different language, but with unvarying purpose, he preached to the end of his life.
His doctrine of fair dealing is best summed up in this speech spoken at Dallas, Tex., April 5, 1905:
“When I say I believe in a square deal I do not mean, and probably nobody that speaks the truth can mean, that he believes it possible to give every man the best hand. If the cards do not come to any man, or if they do come, and he has not got the power to play them, that is his affair. All I mean is that there shall be no crookedness in the dealing. In other words, it is not in the power of any human being to devise legislation or administration by which each man shall achieve success and have happiness; it not only is not in the power of any man to do that, but if any man says that he can do it, distrust him as a quack.... All any of us can pretend to do is to come as near as our imperfect abilities will allow to securing through governmental agencies an equal opportunity for each man to show the stuff that is in him; and that must be done with no more intention of discrimination against the rich man than the poor man, or against the poor man than the rich man; with the intention of safeguarding every man, rich or poor, poor or rich, in his rights, and giving him as nearly as may be a fair chance to do what his powers permit him to do; always providing he does not wrong his neighbor.”
This view he re-emphasized at another place:
“When I say a square deal I mean a square deal; exactly as much a square deal for the rich man as for the poor man; but no more. Let each stand on his merits, receive what is due him, and be judged according to his deserts. To more he is not entitled, and less he shall not have.”