Industrial Monopolies Of 1912

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Because the key issue debated then was how to handle the industrial monopolies of 1912: companies like Standard Oil and the American Tobacco Company. The incumbent (Howard Taft) campaigned on breaking up the monopolies; the opposing party (Woodrow Wilson) campaigned on regulating competition to prevent monopolies from developing in the first place; and the third-party campaigner (Teddy Roosevelt) argued we should actually welcome monopolies while regulating their activities. Wilson won, and ended up signing two major antitrust laws to supplement the existing Sherman Act: the Clayton Act and FTC Act. To this day, antitrust law is based on these three acts. Yet the industries they cover – and our relationships with the large companies in them

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