Square Deal

For the employment practices of George F. Johnson, see Endicott-Johnson Co. & The Square Deal. For other uses, see Square Deal (disambiguation).
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Theodore Roosevelt
33rd Governor of New York
25th Vice President of the United States
26th President of the United States
First term
Second term
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Theodore Roosevelt's signature
Seal of the President of the United States

The Square Deal was Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program, which reflected his three major goals: conservation of natural resources, corporate law, and consumer protection.[1]

These three demands are often referred to as the "three C's" of Roosevelt's Square Deal. Thus, it aimed at helping middle-class citizens and involved attacking plutocracy and bad trusts while at the same time protecting business from the most extreme demands of organized labor. He explained in 1901–1909:

When I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service.[2]

A progressive Republican, Roosevelt believed in government action to mitigate social evils, and as president he in 1908 denounced "the representatives of predatory wealth" as guilty of "all forms of iniquity from the oppression of wage workers to unfair and unwholesome methods of crushing competition, and to defrauding the public by stock-jobbing and the manipulation of securities."[3]

During his second term, Roosevelt tried to extend his Square Deal further, but was blocked by conservative Republicans in Congress.

  1. ^ Klopfenstein, Mark, The Progressive Era (1900-1920) (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-06-26, retrieved 2010-03-19
  2. ^ Richard D. Heffner; Alexander Heffner (2013). A Documentary History of the United States (Updated & Expanded). Penguin. p. 146. ISBN 9780698136915.
  3. ^ James Daniel Richardson, ed. (1908). A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1908: 1789-1908 and index. Bureau of National Literature and Art. p. 293.