The Clayton Act: Change Or Change?

After the Civil war, large businesses ruled America. Prior to the industrial revolution, the government upheld a hands-off approach towards business. Under the laissez-faire principle, free, unregulated markets led to competition, yet this system suffered under the wrath of growing corporations. The impact of big business on the economy and politics was immense during 1870 to 1899. Corporations were growing significantly in number and size, which had a domineering affect on American economy and defined American life.

It required that all prices must be reasonable and just, rates must be publically posted, outlawed all secret rebates and deals, and price discrimination against smaller companies was now made illegal. While the act promised many changes to reduce the domination of the railroad monopolies, it was not enforced as pro-railroad commissioners were appointed by most of the later presidents. The next act passed by congress in 1890 called Sherman Antitrust Act. The objective of the act was to ban trusts and other contracts that restrained free trade. Much like the Interstate Commerce it was not enforced at all. In fact it was used to help the railroad monopolies even more by regulating labor unions. The very pro-business Supreme Court would rule that strikes violated the prohibition against “a conspiracy in restraint of trade.” In the act. This was the opposite intent of the act, and would not be properly enforced until the early

During the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, the railroads themselves created a large market for the steel and iron industries.4 The steel and oil industries were booming and corruption was rampant. Andrew Carnegie had cornered the market in the steel industry and John D. Rockefeller had cornered the oil market. Rockefeller bought up his competition after essentially putting them out of business by flooding the market with refined oil bringing down prices and profits. He was determined to pay no one a profit because he wanted it all for himself. He created a plan called vertical integration which consolidated his businesses into one by creating The Standard Oil Trust.5 These two men became known as barons and got rich beyond belief. In 1890, the Government enacted the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to prevent large firms from controlling one single industry and finally put a stop to these monopolies and trusts, 6 but it was not rigorously enforced until the 1900’s. This act was designed to restore competition and

The Clayton Anti-Trust Act targeted business monopolies that could easily control the whole economy. Wilson being the arrogant president that he was, created a few minor laws that would not greatly improve the economy. It would be the next successor of the president that would be left with all these problems.

The Sherman Antitrust Act was enacted on July 2nd, 1890 which prohibits activities that restrict interstate commerce and competition in the marketplace.

There are different types of businesses, for example, some use monopolies, trust and pools, while other eliminate competition for higher prices. As stated in “Progressive reformers regarded regulation as a cure for all sorts of socioeconomic and political problems” , “The Sherman Act of 1890 attempted to outlaw the restriction of competition by large companies that co-operated with rivals to fix outputs, prices, and market shares, initially through pools and later through trusts” , meaning, competition is the

The questions that remain in people heads is did the federal government do its job in regulating business? Or was it overstepping its boundaries with these acts? During the Progressive Era Reforms it was thought to address issues that occurred during the Glided Age. Regulating business can be tricky, my thought is that to regulate means the US Government would make laws to oversee, adjust, fine tune and correct the unfair business tactics in industry and big business, not to run

President Theodore Roosevelt, a leader of progressivism was highly in favor for a reform at a national level. He believed it was the governments duty to regulated businesses and improve the life's of the people. While the second industrial revolution brought major industrial achievement it also gave corporate bosses excessive amount of power, which they used to bend political parties to their favor and progressives such as president Wilson hoped to rectify this(Document 2). During this progressive movement many Americans focused on reform the country in ways that would creating a limitation on major business, such as Rockefeller Standard Oil, that used a unfair monopoly system to build their empire, which was damaging the economy. Roosevelt being the first to take signification action on trust-busting, such as passing the Hepburn Act which was enacted in 1906 set a precedent for the power of the federal government. The Hepburn Act set a maximum price for the freight rates on the railroads and it extended the reach of the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulation of pipelines, freight companies, sleeping-car companies, bridges and ferries. During this period the federal government passed an incredible amount of legislation that mainly regulated the problems in the society to provide a greater sense of regulation and protection for the people. Problems such as overbearing freight prices, vile food preparation and inconsistent economic status were issues that needed to be amended. Roosevelt also focused of the conservation of natural resources to help further developed the nation land and it's usefulness(Document 6). Anti-trust acts, Federal Reserve Acts were also established to break trusts to help improve market rates and improve the quality of life for the working class through more regulations on businesses by the federal government. Roosevelt trust-busting helped

Although Wilson passed many small acts during his presidency, the most profound act he passed was the Clayton Anti-Trust Act. This act was considered a continuation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and was said to give Sherman Anti-Trust Act its teeth. Unlike the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the Clayton Anti-Trust Act defined a trust, and legalized strikes, as well as peaceful picketing. In the Clayton Anti-Trust Act it states, "It

In my opinion, the most important reform during the Progressive Era was his antitrust policy. Monopolies and trust, most of the time are very bad for consumers. First, because their is only one company controlling them, they can set any price they choose regardless of the demand, because they know that the consumer has no other choice whatsoever. Considering this, they will raise cost for consumers leading to inflation. Now, one of the many problems caused by this marketing controlling, is that sadly, they have no economic reason to improve or revolutionize their product, which means that as long as they are up, consumers will not have any new product coming from them. Being so, when Teddy Roosevelt created the antitrust act, he immediately

1914: Clayton passes the Federal Trade Commission Act to invest trust activity and halt unfair behavior (false ads, adulteration.mislabeling, and bribes).

The Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 was passed to prohibit trusts, this was the first law passed by U.S. Congress to enforce this. This act was named after Senator John Sherman. Before this act was put into place, many other states had enforced laws very similar to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. These laws were not perfect though, the large corporations had the majority of the economic power. Congress was not pleased with this, thus making the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. This act allowed Congress to regulate interstate commerce, outlawing monopolistic practices. If a person were to violate this act, he or she could be imprisoned for a year and fined five-thousand dollars. This law was successfully used to help Theodore Roosevelt during his campaign, “trust-busting”. Also, President Taft used the law to back himself up against the Standard Oil Trust and American Tobacco Company. The Standard Oil trust was when a board of nine trustees was set up to make all of the company decisions , allowing the company to run as a monopoly. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act allowed both presidents to dissolve the trusts that were creating problems. On the other hand, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act had many holes, it did not have exact wording, therefore allowing companies to still control the majority of the producing and still get away with it. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act had substantial success, but was put to rest and replaced with the Clayton Anti-Trust

As a Canadian in today’s society we believe we have a certain set of inalienable rights. One of those rights that seem to be at the forefront of the 2015 Canadian election is privacy. As Dr. Kent Roach and Dr. Craig Forcese state, “privacy is, in our society, the right to be left alone by the state.” The Conservative upbringing of Bill C-51 challenges the ideology around our right to be private, as well as our government’s role in the protection of Canada from threats of terrorism. The Harper government essentially, will increase their role in national security to keep a constant watchful eye on potentially harmful situations and end them before anyone is hurt or killed. If passed, the bill would allow the government to arrest anyone suspected of terrorism without that person even committing a crime. Furthermore, the language used in the bill is extremely vague and makes one question, where the line will be drawn? Will our basic rights to peaceful protest and free speech be affected? Unfortunately perhaps they will. One of the most concerning parts of the bill in regard to privacy is the fact that the government will now be able to access several sensitive documents about citizens from top agencies such as the Public Health Agency, Canadian Border Services Agency as well as the Canadian Border Services Agency. Privacy is changing in Canada. This is a landmark bill and as such it is creating quite a splash in the ongoing Canadian Election.

From 1900-1920, there was an era of reform by progressives, as a result, the federal government brought reforms at the national level. Two major types of reforms were Social reform, and Political reform. Socially, there was Women's suffrage, which gave women the right to vote. There was also meat inspection. This ensured that there were more sanitary practices in food industry. Politically, the direct election of Senators with the 17th amendment. This gave Americans the right to chose their own senators.

Antitrust law in the United States is a collection of federal and state government laws regulating the conduct and organization of business corporations with the intent to promote fair competition in an open-market economy for the benefit of the public. Congress passed the first antitrust statute, the Sherman Antitrust Act, in 1890 in response to the public outrage toward big business. In 1914, Congress passed two additional antitrust laws: the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Clayton Act. (The Antitrust Laws. Web.)