1858-1936
U.S. Attorney General

Trustbuster.

When President William Howard Taft appointed George W. Wickersham attorney general in 1909, many were left wondering about the wisdom of the president's choice. As a partner in one of the more established corporate law firms in New York City and a recognized expert on corporate law, Wickersham could not, it was widely felt, be trusted to pursue vigorously the antitrust campaign initiated by the president's predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt. Yet in the four years he served as the nation's attorney general, Wickersham more than doubled the number of antitrust actions brought by his department and was instrumental in settling several major pending cases, two of which resulted in the dissolution of the nation's largest monopolies, Standard Oil and the American Tobacco Company. Wickersham's knowledge of corporate practices and the conditions of the economic marketplace made him invaluable as a leader...