JACK WEITZEL: The success of the Standard Oil Company led to the creation of trusts in other industries. Soon there was a sugar trust, a salt trust, a steel trust, even a whisky trust.
These huge corporations represented hundreds of millions of dollars. This great wealth made them very powerful.
Former President [Grover] Cleveland, himself a friend of business, warned of a growing danger. "Corporations," he said, "should be carefully-controlled creatures of the law and servants of the people. Instead, they are fast becoming the people's masters."
LEO SCULLY: The public began to demand government controls of the trusts. Farmers claimed that prices were too high, and they blamed the trusts. Workers said their unions could not negotiate with the new industrial giants. Small businessmen charged that trusts were too powerful. They said the trusts could destroy them.
Public demands for action led the governments of fifteen states to pass anti-trust laws. But the state laws could do nothing. Most of the trusts were nationwide corporations which did business in many states.
Public protest was so great that both parties in the eighteen eighty-eight elections promised to pass a federal law against trusts.
JACK WEITZEL: A number of such bills were proposed. One offered by Senator John Sherman, a Republican, was approved by Congress. President Benjamin Harrison signed it into law in eighteen ninety.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25