Anti-Monopoly Movement

The anti-monopoly movement in the United States roughly parallels the rise of the modern corporation. It has drawn to its ranks many different kinds of activists, from farm populists to working-class advocates, and from middle-class reformers to corporate leaders who sought to make the capitalist system more predictable and rational.

Anti-monopolist sentiment in the United States has often been galvanized by specific legal instances. One of the earliest and most celebrated anti-monopoly causes centered on the controversial Charles River Bridge case. In 1837, after a long, protracted legal battle, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state of Massachusetts could build a free bridge over the Charles River, even though it had earlier chartered a toll bridge close by. The proprietors of the first bridge protested that the new project represented a breach of contract. Advocates of the new corporate charter and much of the public regarded this objection as little more than an attempt by the privileged to impede progress.

Such sentiments had been percolating since the American Revolution. Property did not help society, wrote Revolutionary War veteran and Massachusetts Senator Theodore Sedgwick when gotten by unfair dealings, fraud, oppression, or monopoly. Antimonopoly activists in the second half of the 19th century often regarded the absence of any legal protections for farmers and workers as de facto privileges for the wealthy, especially the wealthy who controlled the nation's railroads, coal, and oil refining industries. Farmer and labor advocates and small business owners all clamored for federal laws that would protect them from price fixing and economic coercion. In response, Congress gave them two very weak laws in the last 2 decades of the 19th century: the Interstate [Page 163]Commerce Act of 1887 and the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.

The Interstate Commerce Commission did not seriously inhibit the shipping practices of the railroads, wrote historian Nell Irvin Painter, and the Sherman Act was at first ineffective, but the statute came to life under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt, made president by the assassination of William McKinley in 1901. Angered by the personal arrogance of men like financier J. P. Morgan and fearful that popular discontent would move the country to the left, Roosevelt authorized the selective prosecution of prominent monopolies like the vast Northern Securities railroad company.

Roosevelt's “trust-busting” battles captured the public's imagination during the Progressive Era. A generation of writers and journalists further nourished the anti-monopoly impulse by exposing the underside of corporate power in their articles and books. Their most famous contributions included Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, a fictional but compelling account of the Chicago meatpacking industry, and Ida Tarbel's History of the Standard Oil Company.

But modest regulatory reform also received the support of much of the corporate sector, whose principals saw in greater government oversight a more predictable business environment and the ability to maintain an advantage over smaller competitors. This influence weakened more radical efforts to reign in monopoly power. In addition, anti-monopoly activists during this period often remained divided on how to confront corporate dominance. Some advocated a vigorous regimen of antitrust activity; others counseled the acceptance of large corporations within the context of a strong regulatory environment.

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