sold President Theodore Roosevelt Desires Justice and Insists on Right Principles

Roosevelt came to office in an era when corporate monopolies and conspiracies, price fixing, discriminatory commercial preferences and outright dishonest business practices were being recognized as problems that needed to be addressed.

The new President believed strongly that the government could give Americans a more just and equitable society, and to do this he needed to bring order and fair dealings to industry and commerce. He broke presidential ground by establishing a detailed program to “effectively control and regulate all big combinations,” giving it a name by which it became (and remains) known – the Square Deal.

Soon after taking office, he created the Bureau of Corporations with the power to investigate businesses engaged in interstate commerce. He also resurrected the nearly defunct Sherman Antitrust Act by bringing a successful suit to break up a huge railroad conglomerate, the Northern Securities Company; he then pursued this policy of “trust-busting” by initiating suits against 43 other major corporations during the next seven years.

In 1903 he managed passage of the Elkins Act, which regularized railroad rates and prohibited discriminatory practices. Yet these measures were not enough so long as the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) remained powerless. So Roosevelt next pushed through the Hepburn Act, which greatly extended the jurisdiction of the ICC, and gave it the right to fix "just and reasonable" railroad rates. It also forbade railroads to carry commodities in the production of which they were interested.

In broadening ICC authority over not only businesses but state commerce commissions, TR was acting on the principle he stated in the 1907 State of the Union address, that when it came to interstate commerce, “Only the National Government can in thoroughgoing fashion exercise the needed control;” however, “the National Interstate Commerce Commission will work in harmony with the several State commissions, each within its own province, to achieve the desired end.”

In 1907, at the behest of Governor Braxton Comer, the Alabama Legislature adopted a strict code of laws to regulate railroad practices in the state, the goal being to lower rates. Courts had often been friendly to railroads, so the Alabama acts led the L & N Railroad to turn to the federal courts for relief, hoping there to cripple the rate-lowering scheme. Judge Thomas G. Jones (oddly enough, Roosevelt’s first southern appointee to the federal bench) presided over the initial court battles, rendering a decision favoring the railroad interests.

This was unwelcome news to the President, as although it involved overturning a state rate-lowering requirement rather than one of the ICC, the court was setting an undesirable and potentially dangerous precedent. So Roosevelt determined to see whether he could find the authority to step in and effect the outcome, a move made more complicated (and even paradoxical) by the need to sustain federal supremacy (in this case a federal court ruling) over state laws and regulations (here the Alabama position, of which he approved).

Judge Judson Clements was appointed to the ICC in 1892, where his knowledge of railroad transportation proved invaluable. He served on the Commission for 25 years. Roosevelt sent him to the scene of controversy to be his eyes and ears, giving him instructions that confirm TR’s commitment to the federal supremacy that underlay his entire business regulation program, illustate his adherence to principle, and virtually exemplify his essential themes of justice and fairness – in short, a square deal.

Theodore Roosevelt autograph on a Typed Letter Signed on White House letterhead though written onboard the USS Mississippi, with holograph additions, 2 pages, October 3, 1907, to Judge Judson Clements of the Interstate Commerce Commission. "I am seriously concerned at the condition in Alabama in connection with the injunction issued by Judge Jones against the enforcement of the State rate laws. You know my position. You know of course that there cannot be the slightest hesitation on the part of the national government in sustaining the courts in securing due process of law. You know, moreover, my belief that ultimately anything dealing with interstate commerce should be decided purely by national government; but I am very anxious that my adherence to principles, which as principles seem to me vital, and from which I shall never deviate, shall not work injustice in any given case if it can be avoided. I should like full information about it. I have had a long talk with Governor Comer, and his statement of the case would seem to show that the rates fixed are neither unreasonable nor confiscatory, and he assures me that there is no intention to resist the orders of the court, and only a desire that the rates shall go into effect now, pending the appeal to the Supreme Court, because he feels that otherwise there will be such interminable delay as to work a defeat of the ends of justice. I do not know that there is anything that I can do in the matter, but I would like full information about it. I need not say to you that it is a matter of great discretion and delicacy, and in investigating it I do not wish you to let it be known that you are investigating it by my direct orders, because this would necessarily create a great newspaper furor. But I would like you to go at once to Alabama, investigate the whole subject, seeing Governor Comer, Judge Jones, and the Railway Commission of Alabama, and to report to me in full on the whole situation. My object is on the one hand unfalteringly to support the federal courts, and on the other hand if possible to avoid any unseemly clash with the State authorities, and above all to secure the speediest possible settlement of the matter by the Court of Appeals. If in your judgment the rate is not confiscatory, and if there is any way by which through action by your commission we can assure its being put into effect at once, pending the appeal, that is what I should prefer; but this may be wholly impossible. So give me as full a report as practicable, stating the case absolutely on its merits, and without regard to the feelings of either side."

The letter is matted with a photo and framed. It is interesting to note that TR wrote this on board the USS Mississippi, where he was cruising down the Mississippi River to highlight his announcement of the calling of the first conference on conservation in the nation’s history. This letter is a virtual history lesson on Roosevelt and his presidency. It shows his determination to stick by his fundamental beliefs, his view that justice be the goal in all his actions, and his focus on economics. Perhaps even more importantly, we can see his thought process and watch him govern; as the letter continues, we observe how he cleverly comes around to suggesting a way out of his dilemma: he would have the ICC reissue, under its federal umbrella, the rate forbidden to the state by the court. Thus it could go into effect immediately under U.S. aegis and render the court decision against the state law almost irrelevant.