Introduction

The trust question was the corporation question. The great antitrust debates of the late 1890s and the early years of the twentieth century, including the measures proposed and adopted, were, in essence, debates about the role and power of the large corporations in the market and in society at large, and debates about the corresponding role and power of government in relation to the emergent corporate order. The great question of the day, as Woodrow Wilson defined the issue on more than one occasion, “we sum up under the general term of the corporation question, the trust question.” Accordingly, “We state our problem for statesmen by saying that it is the problem of the corporation.”

Beneath the outer layers of controversy over doctrines of competition and monopoly, the antitrust debates consisted at their core of two major questions: Was the corporate reorganization of the marketplace inevitable or desirable? and, What measures were necessary and proper in adapting the law and administrative policy to the corporate reorganization?

Although interrelated, the two questions posed different issues. The one challenged the rise of corporate capitalism; the other assumed and affirmed it. But in politics the debates did not proceed in separate channels that corresponded with logical distinctions. Their intermixture has proved a source of confusion to participants and commentators alike. Compounding the confusion, national political leaders, especially presidents and presidential aspirants, whatever their personal policy inclination, could not easily avoid entering debate on both questions, while seeking support from all sides of each.