Roosevelt and Anti-business

Roosevelt and Anti-business

It is often observed that Roosevelt had a grudge against big business. Roosevelt was against the concentration of wealth and economic control in America. This idea influenced some of the programs and acts passed in his New Deal as well as the wealth tax that followed. Many businessmen were opposed to Roosevelt’s new taxation system. Newspaper owner, Roy Howard, accused Roosevelt of creating the new taxation system as a form of revenge on business. Roosevelt fired back in his state of the union address when he declared that the wealthy were selfish looking to form an autocracy in which they had all the power and the public as slaves.

Roosevelt’s reasoning for reform stemmed from his belief that a small group of businessmen had control of the majority of the country. He was willing to sacrifice the wealth of America’s richest businessmen to rescue America’s economy. He was successful in doing this through his wealth tax. In the later parts of his 1936 campaign, Roosevelt used his speeches to further denounce big business. Congress chose to side with the critics of Roosevelt’s tax reform and worked to make it less harsh on big business and businessmen.

Roosevelt’s campaign against business continued into the late 1930’s after he had appointed law professor Thurman Arnold to head the antitrust division of the Justice Department. Arnold’s task was to assemble a team of lawyers and go after businesses that had too firm of a hold on their specific industry. Arnold utilized any publicity he could get to denounce businesses he viewed as too influential in their industry. The second world war ended Roosevelt’s anti-business crusade, but not before Arnold and his team of lawyers had filed over 100 lawsuits against businesses from every industry.