Misplaced Praise for Roosevelt

AUGUST 30, 2010 E-MAIL THIS PRINTER FRIENDLY

Sometimes when I read certain op-eds, there is so much I want to say that I get overwhelmed. That was the case with an August 26 op-ed by Charlie Cooper of the Baltimore MoveOn Council. His anti-corporate op-ed was full of so much economic ignorance and historical inaccuracy that I could write a short book refuting it (many others would do far better job than I, though). I don’t have the time or inclination to discuss every flaw in this op-ed, though. Instead, I’d like to focus on one part where he praised President Theodore Roosevelt for busting the trusts.

Theodore Roosevelt is a popular president to praise for both liberals and conservatives. In reality, though, no one who favors limited government should ever utter a word of praise for this president. There are many reasons for those who favor freedom and liberty to dislike Roosevelt, and Jim Harper of the Cato Institute explains why the “Trust Buster” did little of actual good:

…for more than two decades [before Roosevelt’s trust busting began] output had been expanding and prices had been falling in the American economy—the opposite of what one would expect with a lot of monopolies. Despite Roosevelt’s allegations about railroad monopolies (which were largely built with government subsidies), in the previous half-century railroad mileage in the United States had expanded more than 250-fold to 258,784 miles, and railroad rates were falling. Cheaper railroad rates undermined local monopolies by giving people the choice of buying economically priced goods from far away. Regardless, TR signed the Hepburn and Elkins acts, which strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission’s power to control competition by regulating railroad rates…

Alarmed at the increasing size of major industrial corporations (which were often helped by tariffs and other kinds of privileges), many people didn’t seem to realize that markets were expanding even faster—corporations were increasingly serving national and international markets. John D. Rockefeller earned his fortune refining kerosene from western Pennsylvania oil, but rivals discovered oil fields in Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, and California as well as overseas. New products like Thomas Edison’s electric lights attracted customers away from kerosene lamps, and Henry Ford’s cheap Model T cars needed gasoline, a petroleum product that enabled new oil companies to establish themselves. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil thrived because it was a low-cost competitor, investing in cost-cutting technology, yet so intense was the competition that its market share declined. There would have been more competition had TR focused on lowering tariffs and repealing corporate privileges, and refrained from attacking big discounters like Standard Oil.

Mr. Cooper and those who praise Roosevelt would be wise to study economics and history a little closer. Roosevelt’s policies are certainly nothing we should be emulating.

No comments available

Name *
E-mail *
Response *


* = Required

Misplaced Praise for Roosevelt

Post Your Comment Here

Policy Blog

View Cart