Square Deal

For the tile game, see Square Deal (game). For the employment practices of George Fudge Johnson, see Endicott-Johnson Co. & The Square Deal. For other uses, see Square Deal (disambiguation).

The Square Deal was President Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program formed upon three basic ideas: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. These three demands are often referred to as the "three C's" of Roosevelt's Square Deal. Thus, it aimed at helping middle class citizens and involved attacking plutocracy and bad trusts while at the same time protecting business from the most extreme demands of organized labor. In contrast to his predecessor William McKinley, Roosevelt was a liberal Republican who believed in government action to mitigate social evils, and as president denounced “the representatives of predatory wealth” as guilty of “all forms of iniquity from the oppression of wage workers to defrauding the public.”

Within his second term, he tried to extend his square deal further. Roosevelt pushed for the courts, which had been guided by a clearly delineated standard up to that point, to yield to the wishes of the executive branch on all subsequent anti-trust suits. In 1903, with Roosevelt's support, Congress passed the Elkins Act. This stated that railroads were not allowed to give rebates to favored companies any longer. These rebates had treated small Midwestern farmers unfairly by not allowing them equal access to the services of the railroad. The Interstate Commerce Commission controlled the prices that railroads could charge.

Legislation was passed which specified that meat had to be processed safely with proper sanitation. Foodstuffs and drugs could no longer be mislabeled, nor could consumers be deliberately misled. Roosevelt also fought strongly for land conservation, and safeguarded millions of hectares of wilderness from commercial exploitation. Roosevelt’s conversation efforts were driven by practicality as well as by a love for nature. Influenced by early wise-use advocates like Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt believed that nature existed to benefit humanity. In a conserved wilderness, water could be taken to irrigate farmland, sport could be had, and timber could be harvested. Acting on these beliefs, Roosevelt set up the federal Reclamation Service in 1902. The agency, through the use of dams and irrigation, created arable land in areas that had been too dry to farm, and the Reclamation Service eventually brought millions of acres of farmland into service.

Health and welfare

• The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 were both widely accredited from Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.

• The Federal Employers Liability Act of 1908.

Labor

• A measure was approved that providing that eight hours should constitute a day’s labor on irrigation works.
• Slavery and involuntary servitude in the Philippine Islands, with violation of the Act being punishable by forfeiture of contracts and a fine of not less than $10,000.
• A measure was approved safeguarding the lives of employees in mines in Territories by regulating the amount of ventilation and providing that entries, etc., should be kept well dampened with water to cause coal dust to settle.
• A measure was approved exempting from taxation in the District of Columbia household effects to the value of $1,000, wearing apparel, libraries, school books, family portraits and heirlooms.
• A measure was approved providing for Government supervision of employment agencies in the District of Columbia.
• An Act relating to safety appliances on railroad trains was improved.
• A measure was approved requiring the collection of labor statistics in Hawaii.
• A measure was approved for the better protection of seamen.
• A measure was approved for securing the wages of employees on public works.
• A measure was approved for protecting the health of motormen and conductors on street railways in the District of Columbia.
• A measure was approved for a more thorough inspection of steam vessels.
• A measure was approved for safeguarding factory employees in the District of Columbia against accidents.
• A measure was approved making wages preferred claims.
• A measure was approved to provide for an investigation of women and child labor in the United States.
• A measure was approved restricting child labor in the District of Columbia.
• A measure was approved incorporating the National Child Labor Committee.
• A measure was approved establishing the Foundation for the Promotion of Industrial Peace.
• A measure was approved to regulate the hours of labor of railroad employees in the District of Columbia and the Territories.
• A measure was approved making railroad companies engaged in interstate commerce or operating in the District of Columbia, the Territories, the Panama Canal Zone, or other United States possessions, liable for injuries to, or death of, employees while on duty.
• A measure was approved safeguarding the lives of miners in the Territories and the District of Alaska.
• A measure was approved permitting leave of absence, with pay, on Labor Day to per diem employees of the Government.
• A measure was approved granting to injured employees on the Panama Canal absence, with pay for time necessarily lost as a result of injuries.
• A measure was approved for the inspection of boilers.
• A measure was approved prohibiting peonage.
• The first Federal employment service (forerunner of the United States Employment Service) was created in the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, Department of Commerce and Labor (1907).

Conservation

• The Transfer Act of 1905.
• The Antiquities Act of 1906 gave the president authority to restrict the use of particular public lands in America.
• 16 million additional acres of Western forest were signed into federal protection.
• In Alaska, Roosevelt created the Tongass and the Chugach forest reserves.
• In Hawaii, Roosevelt set several small islands aside as the Hawaiian Islands Bird Reservation.
• Pelican Island in Florida was proclaimed as the first federal bird reservation in 1903 (total of 51 bird reservations established by Roosevelt administration).
• Improvements of waterways and reservation of water power sites were carried out.
• The provisions of the Newlands Act were extended to Texas (1906).
• The National Forest Service was established (1905).
• From 1901 to 1909, Roosevelt signed legislation establishing five national parks: Crater Lake, Oregon; Wind Cave, South Dakota; Sullys Hill, North Dakota; Mesa Verde, Colorado; and Platt, Oklahoma.
• In one of a series of acts aimed at regulating the harvesting of Alaskan wildlife, Congress passed "An Act For the protection of game in Alaska, and for other purposes," known as the Alaska Game Act, protecting certain game animals in Alaska.

Public projects

• The Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902.
• The Kinkaid Act of 1904.
• The Forest Homestead Act (1906) allowed the patenting, or deeding, of millions of acres of potential agricultural land within the national forests.

Veterans

• The Civil War program was transformed into a system of old-age pensions, with an executive order of 1904 declaring that old age itself constituted a disability: “When a claimant has passed the age of sixty-two years he is disabled one-half in ability to perform manual labor and is entitled to be rated at six dollars a month; after sixty-five years at eight dollars a month; after sixty-eight years at ten dollars a month, and after seventy years at twelve dollars a month.” This order provided tens of thousands of Union veterans with non-contributory old-age pensions.

Education

• The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching was chartered by an Act of Congress (1906).

Rural areas

• A Commission on Country Life was established (1908) to investigate ways of making country life more attractive.

Business regulation

• The Expediting Act of 1903.
• The Elkins Act 1903.
• A Department of Commerce and Labor was set up (1903) to regulate business and enforce economic regulations.
• The Hepburn Act of 1906 strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission; prior to that, the commission had minimal resources to carry out its duties.
• Under the Immunity of Witness Act (1906) corporate officials could no longer make a plea of immunity to avoid testifying in cases which dealt with the illegal activities of their corporations.

References

• Brands, H. W. (1997). T. R.: The Last Romantic. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-06959-0.
• Brinkley, Alan (2007). American History: A Survey (12th ed.). McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-312492-6.
• Gould, Lewis L. (1992). The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-0565-1.
• Harbaugh, William Henry (1961). The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt (1st ed.). New York: Farrar, Straus And Cudahy. ISBN 978-0-19-519822-5.
• Morris, Edmund (2001). Theodore Rex (1st ed.). Random House. ISBN 978-0-394-55509-6.
• Mowry, George E. (1958). The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900-1912 (1st ed.). New York and Evanston: Harper Torchbooks. ISBN 978-0-06-133022-3.
• Rhodes, James (1922). The McKinley and Roosevelt Administrations, 1897-1909. New York: The MacMillan Company. ISBN 978-1-4067-3464-5.