jan 1, 1914 - Clayton Antitrust Act

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A 1914 law that gave more power to the Justice Department to pursue antitrust cases to prevent corporations from exercising monopoly power; it also specified that labor unions could not generally be prosecuted for “restraint of trade.”

Wilson and the Democratic Congress turned next to the trusts. In doing so, Wilson relied heavily on Louis D. Brandeis, the celebrated people’s lawyer. Brandeis denied that monopolies were efficient. On the contrary, he believed the best source of efficiency was vigorous competition in a free market. The trick was to prevent trusts from unfairly using their power to curb such competition. The Clayton Antitrust Act (1914), which amended the Sherman Act, gave more power to the Justice Department to pursue antitrust cases. It specified that labor unions could not generally be prosecuted for “restraint of trade” but left the definition of illegal practices somewhat flexible. The new Federal Trade Commission received broad powers to decide what was fair, investigating companies and issuing “cease and desist” orders against anticompetitive practices.

Labor issues, meanwhile, received attention from a blue-ribbon U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations, appointed near the end of Taft’s presidency and charged with investigating the conditions of labor. In its 1913 report, the commission summed up the impact of industrialization on low-skilled workers. Many earned $10 or less a week and endured regular episodes of unemployment; some faced long-term poverty and hardship. Workers held “an almost universal conviction” that they were “denied justice.” The commission concluded that a major cause of industrial violence was the ruthless antiunionism of American employers. In its key recommendation, the report called for federal laws protecting workers’ right to organize and engage in collective bargaining. Though Congress and Wilson were, in 1915, not ready to pass such laws, the commission helped set a new national agenda that would come to fruition in the 1930s.

In the meantime, guided by the commission’s revelations, President Wilson warmed up to labor. In 1915 and 1916, he championed a host of bills to benefit American workers. They included the Adamson Act, which established an eight-hour day for railroad workers; the Seamen’s Act, which eliminated age-old abuses of merchant sailors; and a workmen’s compensation law for federal employees. Wilson, despite initial modest goals, presided over a major expansion of federal authority. The continued growth of U.S. government offices during Wilson’s term reflected a reality that transcended party lines: corporations had grown in size and power, and Americans increasingly wanted federal authority to grow, too.

Wilson’s reforms did not extend to the African Americans who had supported him in 1912. In fact, the president rolled back certain Republican policies, such as selected appointments of black postmasters. “I tried to help elect Wilson,” W. E. B. Du Bois reflected bitterly, but “under Wilson came the worst attempt at Jim Crow legislation and discrimination in civil service that we had experienced since the Civil War.” Wilson famously praised the film Birth of a Nation (1915), which depicted the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan in heroic terms. In this way, Wilson was not “progressive” at all. His Democratic control of the White House helped set the tone for the Klan’s return in the 1920s.

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