Summary

In 1905 Roosevelt foresaw a time when America could be "divided into two parties — one containing the bulk of the property owners and conservative people, the other the bulk of the wage workers and the less prosperous." Roosevelt predicted this "calamity" if Americans perceived that the Republican party represented just the wealthy and big corporations. And the key to preventing this rupture, Roosevelt believed, was to gain control through regulation of the railroads he saw as the source of much of the widespread corruption in American society. In his first address to Congress after his election, the president emphasized the importance of keeping "the highways of commerce" open to everyone equally. He called for an expansion of power in the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate railroad rates that favor the trusts.

As if on cue, Sam McClure determined to...