Humbling Corporate Giants: An Antitrust Lesson of History

During the Gilded Age (1870-1900), corporate leviathans, like J.P. Morgan and Rockefeller, were beyond the purview of the law. Their influence at that time was almighty. (1/10)

Hiding on the old-fashioned "Social Darwinism" ideology, these monopolists preferred to be identified as part of progressive movement, striving toward a better age, rather than mere engaged in profiteering. (2/10)

These monopolists, with their corporate power and influence and notwithstanding the Sherman Act, never imagined that one day their glory would come to an end, not until The only true "trustbuster", Theodore Roosevelt, took the White House after Pres. McKinley. (3/10)

For Roosevelt, the public was ruler over corporations, and not vice versa. However, Roosevelt was not anti-business, but strong in punishing villainy. This image would make him the "single most important advocate of a political antitrust law." (4/10)

As a man more than his rhetoric, one of his first bold acts as President was to confront the two great monopolists, J.P. Morgan and Rockefeller, which his predecessor, Pres. McKinley, would never had the enormous courage to do so. (5/10)

True indeed, his first corporate battle to order Attorney General Knox was the investigation of Northern Securities Company of J.P. Morgan. After learning the investigation, J.P Morgan, indignant and angry, arrived at the White House. (6/10)

Later in life, Roosevelt recalled that J.P. Morgan complained of lack of notice, and proposed that their attorneys fix the matter. But Roosevelt responded, "that can't be done." His Attorney General added, "we don't want to fix it up, we want to stop it." (7/10)

The Northern Securities litigation was relatively fast and it eventually went up to the U. S. Supreme Court. In divided Court, Justice Harlan, a great antitrust absolutist, penned the majority opinion of the Court against Northern Securities. (8/10)

In the end, the Northern Securities case humbled the mighty J.P. Morgan, a man "who had once seemed beyond the reach of any law, a man whom nations might obey rather than order.". (9/10)

Finally, Roosevelt recounted, "it is imperative to teach the masters of biggest corporations in the land that they were not, and would not be permitted to regard themselves, as above the law." (10/10)

*If interested to read an intellectual account of Brandesian's "curse of bigness," read Tim Wu.