Because of Roosevelt's trust-busting reputation and the wake of the Muckraker's exposing literature, more than a few new laws were passed during the first decade of the 1900s.

Roosevelt made it illegal to give preferential treatment to railroad passengers with the passage of the Elkins Act in 1903. The Hepburn Act, passed soon after, gave Congress even more power over the railroads.

The Bureau of Corporations, formed in 1903, let the government closely watch big businesses for material to use in it's trust-busting cases.

Soon after the release of The Jungle, congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act. It helped curb abuses in the food-processing industry. In the same year, 1906, the Meat Inspection Act allowed meat inspectors to watch interstate commerce of animal food products.

Concerns for the nation's natural resources were satisfied in the creation of national forests and parks, which protected timberlands from commercial harvesting. In addition, Roosevelt passed the Newlands Act of 1902, which gave subsidies for irrigation in sixteen western states. Another conservation-oriented bill was the Antiquities Act of 1906 that protected large areas of land. The Inland Waterways Commission was established in 1907 to control the United States' rivers and streams.

Go to thenext page.