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Business panic of 1907

In 1907, Roosevelt faced the greatest domestic economic crisis since the Panic of 1893. Wall Street's stock market entered a slump in early 1907, and many investors blamed Roosevelt's regulatory policies for the decline in stock prices. Roosevelt ultimately helped calm the crisis by meeting with the leaders of U.S. Steel on November 4, 1907, and approving their plan to purchase a Tennessee steel company near bankruptcy—its failure would ruin a major New York bank.

However, in August, Roosevelt had exploded in anger at the super-rich for their economic malfeasance, calling them "malefactors of great wealth" in a major speech, "The Puritan Spirit and the Regulation of Corporations". Trying to restore confidence, he blamed the crisis primarily on Europe, but then, after saluting the unbending rectitude of the Puritans, he went on:

It may well be that the determination of the government...to punish certain malefactors of great wealth, has been responsible for something of the trouble; at least to the extent of having caused these men to combine to bring about as much financial stress as possible, in order to discredit the policy of the government and thereby secure a reversal of that policy, so that they may enjoy unmolested the fruits of their own evil-doing.

Regarding the very wealthy, Roosevelt privately scorned, "their entire unfitness to govern the country, and... the lasting damage they do by much of what they think are the legitimate big business operations of the day".