The Square Deal is a term that originated from Theodore Roosevelt’s nationwide legislations, which consisted of mainly three components, such as natural resources preservation, control of corporations, and consumer protection. The term itself means treating someone fairly.
Explanation:
The term Square Deal indicates the government ideology of the President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt. In the Square Deal Roosevelt based his ideas in three basic concepts: the conservation of natural resources, the control of companies and the protection of consumers. The three points are often referred to as the “three C’s” of the Square Deal (Conservation of natural resources, Control of corporations, Consumer protection). Roosevelt’s goal was to help the middle class, threatened by the plutocracy and oligopolies of companies, while protecting the companies themselves from the increasingly demanding demands of the unions. Square Deal significance is that Republican progressive Roosevelt believed in the possibility of mitigating society’s ills with government actions, and as president denounced those who had enriched themselves by plundering others, thus making themselves guilty of the inequities that afflicted society, from the oppression of workers to consumer scams. The president called his economic and political program a fair course or deed – Square Deal or Fair Deal. It is plausible to consider that during the Square Deal progressive era was manifested.
Unlike McKinley, who was an outspoken proponent of big business interests, President Roosevelt was more critical of trusts and members of the higher ruling elite. By origin, he was a representative of the upper class, but throughout his life he sought to get closer to ordinary Americans. Having become a brave cowboy in the northwestern United States, T. Roosevelt learned many of their habits and ideas about good and evil. In addition, his father laid down high moral principles in him, which he used not only in life, but also in politics. At the turn of the 20th century, the owners of many trusts pursued an aggressive policy against ordinary Americans, for which the majority of voters did not like the oil magnates and the main owners of the railways, who took away land from the farmers during the construction of highways from east to west.
Roosevelt did not stand on ceremony with such industrialists, openly opposed them, accusing them of raising prices and exploiting workers and farmers. He very sharply opposed the criminal wealth of the plutocrats. T. Roosevelt opposed them trusts, which stimulated production, reduced prices, improved service, respected the rights of other firms and the interests of consumers. Roosevelt’s position did not contain a hint of sympathy for socialism, which he criticized theoretically. Roosevelt was a supporter of evolution, not revolution, hoped to achieve a balance of power between trusts and trade unions and believed that the war between organized labor and capital was not beneficial to anyone except socialists and anarchists. He believed that revolutionary extremists resorting to violence are the worst enemies of freedom in the development of society. T. Roosevelt, being a progressive Republican, kept the traditions of President A. Lincoln regarding ordinary Americans.
T. Roosevelt believed that with the beginning of the XX century, a new American nation is being formed, in the smelter of which the best traditions of immigrants from different countries of Europe and Latin America are melted. He opposed discrimination against immigrants, attracted black Americans to work in city government, which often provoked protests from the right wing of the Republicans. Roosevelt emphasized that white and black people should be judged by their abilities and merits.