Theodore Roosevelt

2 Pages 415 Words

Theodore Roosevelt

At the time of Roosevelt’s presidency the U.S. was a country rapidly coming into its own with Roosevelt as a president whom not only kept up, but pushed it even faster. Both on the domestic and international front Roosevelt aggressively expanded the power of presidency, the federal government and our nation.
It was in the business area in which Roosevelt most aggressively expanded the power of federal government. The government passed few business regulations and in general left business to do as they saw fit. Roosevelt was the first who thought it was the duty of the federal government to make sure that they were responding to public’s needs. Because of this he actively regulated business by enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and pushing new regulatory legislation through congress.
Roosevelt also worked to pass two events that marked the turning point of legislation, the Pure Food and Drug act and Meat Inspection bill. These laws were intended to protect consumers against those in the food industry, especially meat packing. Meat packers used rotten and diseased meat processed in unsanitary conditions and put labels on cans that had little or no relationship to its actual content. This problem Roosevelt personally experienced. Roosevelt’s greatest ally in this struggle against the meat packers was the novel “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair.
International affairs were marked by the same aggression as domestic affairs. The U.S. was already under the Monroe Doctrine, but it was Roosevelt who added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. This confirmed the restriction on European activities in the Western Hemisphere, but added the idea that when a country in the Western Hemisphere did not behave, such as paying off their debts to European countries the U.S. Had a responsibility to discipline them.
Roosevelt’s extensive control over the Western Hemisphere especially the Caribbean was direc...