Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

Business should never be allowed to justify mean, thug ugly deals for any reason.

The trusts are getting less than lawful rates from the railroads.

The importance of supervising the business of great railways and industrial combinations and the necessary investigation and prosecution of unlawful business methods are another necessary tax upon Government which did not exist half a century ago.

The great corporations which we have grown to speak of rather loosely as trusts are the creatures of the State, and the State not only has the right to control them, but it is duty bound to control them wherever the need of such control is shown.

Combinations [large corporate conglomerates], governed entirely by the law of greed … threaten the integrity of our institutions.

Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a felony….. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony…

Unfair methods of competition in commerce are hereby declared unlawful. The commission is hereby empowered and directed to prevent persons, partnerships, or corporations, except banks, and common carriers subject to the Acts to regulate commerce, from using unfair methods of competition in commerce.

…the new front of great corporate transgression.

There is more danger from monopolies than from combinations of workingmen [unions.]

[Americans are] trampled to death beneath the iron heel [of monopolies and trusts.]

I do not dread these corporations as instruments of power to destroy this country, because there are a thousand agencies which can regulate, restrain and control them.

The people were told in the last campaign that trusts [corporate monopolies] were a natural evolution, and that the only way to deal with them was to regulate them. The people are tired of being told such things. What they want is the kind of opportunity that formerly existed in this country.

If, as you say, the success of commercial society depends upon the full play of competition, why do not you and your confreres turn your attention and direct the shafts of your attacks against the trusts and corporations

New Yorkers pay a price of untold millions to the great private monopolies every year an excessive price because these monopolies use their power to defeat effective regulation.-

Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism …. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.

Every restriction of trade creates vested interests that are from then onward opposed to its removal.

Theodore Roosevelt understood that unregulated monopoly could pose an even greater threat than unrestrained government.

it's not only companies who can undermine fair competition. Governments can do it, too. And governments do that when they hand out subsidies to just the favorite few, the selected. They may do that when they hand out subsidies -- and, of course, all financed by taxpayers -- to companies. That may be in the form of special tax treatments, like the tax benefits that firms like Fiat, Starbucks and Apple got from some governments in Europe. Those subsidies stop companies from competing on equal terms. They can mean that the companies that succeed, well, they are the companies that got the most subsidy, the ones that are the best-connected, and not, as it should be, the companies that serve consumers the best.

I made it real clear to the business community - if your plan for innovation is to trick people, is to fool them, is not to tell them the truth about the price, then you're right: I'm going to be right in the way.

If we have done anything wrong, send your man to my man and they can fix it up.

The day of combination is here to stay. Individualism is gone, never to return.

Private enterprise is ceasing to be free enterprise. Private enterprise indeed became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise

No business is above government, and government must be empowered to deal adequately with any business that tries to rise above government.

Business, too, need to mend its ways. For many years various sections of American industry have asked for special legislation which offered a temporary benefit at the expense of normal economic processes. Business has asked for special subsidies and special tariffs, for special protection against price cutters or low cost producers, for government appropriations for this or that special purpose. Business cannot ask for government interference at one time, and then indignantly reject it at another.

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.