DBQ Project Example Essay: Theodore Roosevelt's Role in Reforming US Business Laws

DBQ Project Example Essay In a time period of rapid progressive change, big businesses were blooming and many became corrupt. If it was not for Theodore Roosevelt’s strong role in reforming U.S. laws regulating business in the early 20th century, America would never have been what it is today. Roosevelt’s ability to play a strong role regulating business laws in the early 1900s proved to be effective because it created a foundation of how the economy should be run. As America became a more modernized nation, big businesses started to form trusts to secure profits and keep other businesses intact, President Roosevelt wouldn’t have any of that. In his letter to Sir Edward Grey, Roosevelt said that “We demand that big business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that when anyone engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right he shall himself be given a square deal.” (Document A). He basically describes in this quote that the businesses must be fair to the people, and not just be all about themselves. This relates to the theme of economic transformations, because the economy was rapidly changing and businesses were becoming stronger. Historian H.W. Brands described how Roosevelt was more on the need for public good, and Roosevelt broke up 40 monopolistic corporations, which made him known as a “trust buster.” This relates to the theme of reform because Roosevelt was reforming all of the business laws in the early 1900s to be equal for all people. Roosevelt wanted equal opportunities for all people, and he did so because he appreciated all of the hard work the working class put in to have a stable living. He was very against the greedy “trusts” that only wanted to make profits for themselves, as shown in the picture from the Inequality and the World Economy of Roosevelt “putting the screws” on the trusts to keep them intact. (Document B). Historian Edmund Morris described how Roosevelt took a moral approach for all of the nation’s