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Trust busting and regulation

Roosevelt was hailed as the "trust-buster" for his aggressive use of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, compared to his predecessors. He viewed big business as essential to the American economy, prosecuting only "bad trusts" that restrained trade and charged unfair prices. Roosevelt brought 44 antitrust suits, breaking up the Northern Securities Company, the largest railroad monopoly, and regulating Standard Oil, the largest oil company. His predecessors, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley, had together prosecuted only 18 antitrust violations.

After winning large majorities in the 1902 elections, Roosevelt proposed creating the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, which included the Bureau of Corporations. Congress was receptive to the department but skeptical of the antitrust powers Roosevelt wanted within the Bureau. Roosevelt appealed to the public, pressuring Congress, which overwhelmingly passed his version of the bill.

House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon commented on Roosevelt's desire for executive branch control: "That fellow at the other end of the avenue wants everything from the birth of Christ to the death of the devil." Biographer Brands notes, "Even his friends occasionally wondered whether there wasn't any custom or practice too minor for him to try to regulate, update or otherwise improve." Roosevelt's willingness to exercise power extended to attempted rule changes in American football, forcing retention of martial arts classes at the U.S. Naval Academy, revising disciplinary rules, altering the design of a disliked coin, and ordering simplified spellings for 300 words, though he rescinded the latter after ridicule from the press and a House protest.