The Square Deal for Dummies - Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive Era Reforms

[Music] in case you thought I was calling you a dummy I am not I am using it within the context of humor and light-heartedness in fact I think you are capable intelligent and a go-getter for taking charge over your education If You Were Somehow affected by my word choice I apologize please enjoy the lecture hey guys welcome back to hipu history um in the next few minutes what we would like to do is to kind of hold your hand and take you through Teddy Roosevelt's Square Deal taking you through his domestic initiatives and programs um that are going to hopefully teach you about the Progressive Era so nothing big nothing fancy nothing too Bookie um but just enough maybe for you to stick your head into a bucket of learning and come out all wet with knowledge so giddy up here we go if's history is going to get [Music] Teddy [Music] right here so what we would like to do is break up this lecture we don't want to make it too long into four sections we're going to take a look at how Teddy is going to deal with different domestic issues that are really problems and remnants of the Industrial Age so we're going to look at Labor we're going to look at the environment we're going to look at consumer protection and we're going to look at business regulation and why don't we start there with business regulation because I have a baseball bat the first thing I would like to teach you is baseball bat Sherman anti Trust act I carry around this all the time number one because it makes me look like a gangster but number two it's a great prop to teach you about Teddy Roosevelt the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed way back in the 1880s um under public pressure to do something about monopolies trusts and pools and about how their enor is enormity a word about their hugeness was really leading to like the death of competition and capitalism and then of course we would see these companies taking advantage of not only their workers but consern consumers by raising prices and controlling um industry in whole so this was passed to break up those corporations in order to create competition and it wasn't used that way in fact it was used against I believe labor unions um in order to break up their power so they couldn't interfere with interstate commerce but nevertheless Roosevelt is a weird Republican he's the only real Progressive Republican believes that the federal government has the power to go from l is a fair to regulation 43 times baby he Swang This Bat 43 times um he started with the Northern Securities company in the early 1900s that went to the Supreme Court the northern security company versus the United States and by a 5 to4 decision the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could use its regulatory power to break up monopolies and Trust in order to create competition for consumers and for for people that's what the heart of of the Sherman Antitrust Act is in a sense laay fair is pure capitalism and then when things get out of hand and capitalism isn't working or corporations are taking advantage we're going to use the Sherman Antitrust Act to regulate that industry and break it up um number two would be the power of the ICC again another remnants of the 1900s the Interstate Commerce Commission was created in the 1800s to regulate interstate trade so to deal with the railroads and to deal with those types of issues that the constitution gives the federal government that deal with activities or commerce between the states um and after the jungle came out a muck raking novel Oh wrong book cues the octopus came out which was about um farmers and their plight in the west against the ra Road companies and the Machinery of monopolies out there that were ruining Farmers lives um Teddy Roosevelt secured passage of the heurn Act and the heurn ACT is kind of the teeth of the IC and that's my telephone [Music] I'm back so the heurn ACT is kind of the teeth of the IC allowing it giving it once kind of a weak agency some power and some strength to regulate the activities of the railroad and when the octopus talked about the unfair kind of pricing schemes that the railroad companies were using against Farmers the heurn ACT is going to set the maximum rate using the ICC the Interstate Commerce Commission to give Farmers a chance so there you go if you're writing a paragraph you have enough to write at least about the regulatory aspects of Teddy Roosevelt Square Deal number one the Sherman Antitrust bat oops Sherman Antitrust Act competition and number two teeth of the IC the heurn ACT which resulted from mck raking I'm going to go grab a rake and some muck we'll be right back with [Music] more Muk ring is really at the heart of a lot of these reform forms and if we specifically look at Consumer Protection One of the easiest things to write about would be um the jungle up in Sinclair the Socialist writing about um you know slaughter houses and workers and uh kind of the the nastiness that goes on you know behind those closed doors and we're not going to talk about that that's in another video but we are going to talk about is the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the FDA or the Pure Food and Drug Act which is number one going to create regulation for consumers in order to make them make sure that they're their their meat is is is safe I'm having a hard time as a vegetarian talking about this um but number two in order to make sure that the food is being tested the ingredients are going to be on the food that drugs are going to be regulated so you can't just put a little bit of heroin in a bottle and sell it for your cold um so there we go consumer protection really easy the Meat Inspection Act Right and the oh no the FDA there we [Music] go all right let's look at another aspect of the Square Deal square is fair and that's kind of the concept of the Square Deal he's giving everybody kind of a fair Shake in our in our in our Republic but another concept is under the environment before Teddy Roosevelt you know in a Las Fair economy uh the environment is a casualty um oil companies and Timber companies and uh whatever companies are going to basically use every raw material at their disgrace disgrace at their discretion in order to make a Prof so um there are preservationists out there that want to save every tree but Teddy is going to be the conservationist over 200 million Acres uh were saved under Teddy Roosevelt putting that aside for um national parks five national parks um over 18 national monuments so creating the National Conservation Commission which is going to keep a federal government eye on the environment so businesses can get their supply of lumber and we can have parks to play in and uh fresh air to breathe so on the environment there you [Music] go the last thing I'd like to talk about is labor um and again the square deal is the Fair Deal and under Teddy Roosevelt the government is going to reverse its position of a laay fair Pro business to being kind of the middleman in this scenario I don't have any strong laws for you yet we're not going to get to that until the 1930s with the labor laws like the Wagner Act but Teddy Roosevelt is the first president that arbitrated that made sure the federal government had a voice when it came to a strike in terms of having that come to some type of um you know mediated conclusion um I think it was the miners the United miners uh Union maybe in Pennsylvania 1902 that went on strike and in the past not only did the federal government Stand By and kind of watch businesses use scab labor and sometimes use its own forces and troops to kind of get rid of the uh Strikers but it would use its own power under the ICC in order to break up strikes using federal troops in order to make sure businesses run you know effectively and smoothly so what Teddy Roosevelt is doing is really kind of introducing the idea of collective bargaining that unions have a right to sit at the table with big business in order to represent workers so we can get Workers you know pay raises and maybe some work safety measures and those types of things so let's review square is fair baby start with that and remember Teddy Roosevelt is a republican um he was the vice president of William mckin a very Pro business president and then when William McKinley was assassinated in my town Buffalo um Teddy Roosevelt became president I don't know why William McKinley picked him he was the hero of the Spanish American war former governor of New York very popular but he's Progressive and that means that he's going to use the power of the federal government from lay fair to regulation review make sure you get the major ideas under business regulation the Sherman Antitrust Act and the ha bur act under the IC that you get your consumer protections when when it comes to the Meat Inspection Act and the Food and Drug Act and you get the concept of fairness when it comes to the environment with the national park system and the uh National Conservation Commission and you also get the idea of collective bargaining although not a law a reverse in the federal government's position to deal with um negotiations between unions and big business so that should be enough if anything you got to see the big bat that was fun we'll see you guys next time for another historic review hip's history style all right click below there's lots of stuff that

Channel: Hip Hughes

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Keywords: study, help, cram, hip hughes, keith hughes, progressive era, teddy roosevelt, meat inspection, fda, muckraking, reform, Square Deal, APUSH, Theodore Roosevelt, the square deal for dummies, teddy roosevelt's progressive era reforms, Author, William Howard Taft, Crash Course, new freedom, new nationalism, progressive, US President, U.S. History, woodrow wilson, teacher, history, socialism, keating-owen act, John Muir, Upton Sinclair, wilson, AP, the jungle, United States, trust busting

Id: _Bu2a3nYTmc

Length: 9min 30sec (570 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 06 2013