Puck [i]hates[/i] Power, and nothing says Power like trusts -- what we'd know today as monopolies. Monopolies were epidemic in the time period despite the trust-busting efforts of Teddy Roosevelt, stamping on Puck's beloved free trade and draining the public interest dry in favor of a monied elite.
Much as I give Woodrow Wilson shit for being a racist, sexist asshole (and he deserves it, the man segregated the government), he had one very attractive feature for the time -- extensive, comprehensive economic policy. Capitalizing on Teddy Roosevelt's split from the Republicans, Wilson pounced with the New Freedom economic platform that called for outright breaking up the big monopolies like Standard Oil and U.S. Steel, along with pointedly taking no corporate campaign money, and -- as if these weren't music enough to Puck's ears -- [i]tariff reduction.[/i] High protective tariffs can help encourage domestic industry and economic growth, but they are, inherently, anti-competitive. Leave your domestic industry without competition for too long, it'll eat itself until only one remains, and you get a monopoly.
Wilson's platform was a roaring success, and he overwhelmed Roosevelt's Bull Moose party and basically completely marginalized Taft's Republicans -- though as Eugene V. Debs taking 6% of the vote in that election showed, it wasn't necessarily the ONLY solution people were settling on. The New Freedom platform would be critical for the next hundred years of US prosperity, doing things like establishing the income tax and the Federal Reserve, and while Wilson's government would feature some true jackasses and some regrettably retrograde policy, it WOULD also be the first foray into national politics for the [i]next[/i] Roosevelt -- and that one would prove to be even more transformative than his cousin Teddy.
As for the cartoon, well, Puck's not going to say [i]no[/i] to trust-busting, but Roosevelt tried that already, and it didn't stick. Thus they argue that, like with other bloodsucking pestilences on society, it doesn't do any good to swat them one by one. You need to remove the conditions that allow them to reproduce and thrive.
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Puck [i]hates[/i] Power, and nothing says Power like trusts -- what we'd know today as monopolies. Monopolies were epidemic in the time period despite the trust-busting efforts of Teddy Roosevelt, stamping on Puck's beloved free trade and draining the public interest dry in favor of a monied elite. Much as I give Woodrow Wilson shit for being a racist, sexist asshole (and he deserves it, the man segregated the government), he had one very attractive feature for the time -- extensive, comprehensive economic policy. Capitalizing on Teddy Roosevelt's split from the Republicans, Wilson pounced with the New Freedom economic platform that called for outright breaking up the big monopolies like Standard Oil and U.S. Steel, along with pointedly taking no corporate campaign money, and -- as if these weren't music enough to Puck's ears -- [i]tariff reduction.[/i] High protective tariffs can help encourage domestic industry and economic growth, but they are, inherently, anti-competitive. Leave your domestic industry without competition for too long, it'll eat itself until only one remains, and you get a monopoly. Wilson's platform was a roaring success, and he overwhelmed Roosevelt's Bull Moose party and basically completely marginalized Taft's Republicans -- though as Eugene V. Debs taking 6% of the vote in that election showed, it wasn't necessarily the ONLY solution people were settling on. The New Freedom platform would be critical for the next hundred years of US prosperity, doing things like establishing the income tax and the Federal Reserve, and while Wilson's government would feature some true jackasses and some regrettably retrograde policy, it WOULD also be the first foray into national politics for the [i]next[/i] Roosevelt -- and that one would prove to be even more transformative than his cousin Teddy. As for the cartoon, well, Puck's not going to say [i]no[/i] to trust-busting, but Roosevelt tried that already, and it didn't stick. Thus they argue that, like with other bloodsucking pestilences on society, it doesn't do any good to swat them one by one. You need to remove the conditions that allow them to reproduce and thrive.