Northern Securities Company

Theodore Roosevelt, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and the Supreme Court

Jay Jorgensen examines President Theodore Roosevelt’s decision to appoint Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court in 1902. Jorgensen recalls Roosevelt’s knowledge of the law informed by two years of study at Columbia University, and he examines his judicial philosophy which was influenced by his study of and admiration for Abraham Lincoln. Jorgensen notes that Holmes’s nomination was supported by Roosevelt’s friend Senator Henry Cabot Loge of Massachusetts, and he emphasizes that Holmes’s dissent in the Northern Securities anti-trust case angered Roosevelt who felt betrayed by Holmes’s opinion. Six photographs, including four of Holmes, illustrate the article.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

2021

Letter from Henry L. Sprague to Theodore Roosevelt

Henry L. Sprague writes President Roosevelt that if Judge William J. Wallace retires, he would be interested in his position on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Sprague lays out his qualifications and his support for Roosevelt’s antitrust policies.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-02-08

President astonishes financiers

Over appeals from financial interests, President Roosevelt and Attorney General Knox will bring suit against the Northern Securities Company as an illegal combination.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902

President’s action shocks all marts

Security markets were demoralized by the announced suit against the Northern Securities Company. The Roosevelt administration has denied that this is the opening blow of “a general war upon great industrial combinations.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902

President will make no attack on trusts

President Roosevelt will not make general attacks on industrial combinations and trusts. Roosevelt is not an enemy of capital and believes that combinations are necessary, but also must be kept within bounds.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902

Financiers fail to move Roosevelt

The gathering of several prominent capitalists in Washington, D.C., is giving rise to the belief that an effort is being made to oppose the litigation against the Northern Securities Company. Financiers have criticized President Roosevelt’s announcement of the suit as hostile and dangerous to the market.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902

Mr. Knox ready to fight the merger

Attorney General Knox will file a petition next week against the merger of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railway companies and the organization of the Northern Securities Company.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902

Excerpt from New York Times on President Roosevelt’s inauguration

On the occasion of his inauguration, the New York Times re-examines President Roosevelt’s record of the past three years, and asks, can the nation expect an even bolder Roosevelt in the years to come? Roosevelt’s policies and actions of the past three years are subjected to a critical analysis.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-03-04

United States of America, complainant, v. Northern Securities Company, the Great Northern Railway Company, the Northern Pacific Railway Company, and others, defendants

Petition from the United States government laying out an antitrust case against the Northern Securities Company.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1901

President Mellen for Roosevelt

President Charles S. Mellen of the Northern Pacific Railroad announced to his friends that he is supporting President Roosevelt for the Republican nomination and will contribute $10,000 to the Republican campaign fund. This was surprising to many since Roosevelt was trying to dissolve the Northern Securities Company of which the Northern Pacific Railroad is a part.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-06-11

The up-to-date charge of San Juan Hill

President Roosevelt is dressed as a Rough Rider and is charging up San Juan Hill towards various Trusts.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902-08-29

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Philander C. Knox

President Roosevelt wants every effort to be made to secure convictions in the Post Office cases. He considers these cases second only to the Northern Securities case in terms of legal work. Roosevelt would like Attorney General Knox’s personal oversight of these cases, or at least some supervisory care.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-10-07

Letter from Secretary of Theodore Roosevelt to Frank H. Vizetelly

Theodore Roosevelt’s secretary has been unable to find the speech that contains the excerpt that Frank H. Vizetelly enclosed in his letter. He will have someone else look for the speech and send it if they are successful.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1912-09-12

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to William H. Moody

President Roosevelt agrees with Attorney General Moody that individual proceedings should not be brought up against officers of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway unless there is evidence linking them to guilty conduct. Roosevelt compares the Atchison case with the case of the western railroads and the International Harvester Company. Unlawful practices were abandoned in both cases, and no individual proceedings were brought against the officers of the western railroads. The president believes the Atchison railroad officers should be treated the same way. Roosevelt details why there is not “one shadow of testimony” against former Secretary of the Navy Paul Morton and believes how the government handled the Northern Securities case in not prosecuting the principal directors is how the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway case should be handled.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-06-12

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to William E. Chandler

President Roosevelt expects that certain plutocrats will support his reelection bid, but he tells Senator William E. Chandler that he has done nothing to solicit their support, nor will he “vary one hair’s breadth” in his political positions to please them. Roosevelt suspects that he will lose some plutocrats over the Northern Securities Case and the Anthracite Coal Strike, just as he will lose some labor agitators over his open shop position in the Miller case, but he believes that “decent men” from both sides will support him. Roosevelt hopes that the “usual snarl over the governorship” will not cost him the state of New York.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-09-14

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Joseph Gurney Cannon

President Roosevelt writes to Joseph Gurney Cannon, Chairman of the Notification Committee, to formally accept his nomination as the Republican presidential candidate and to approve the platform adopted by the Republican National Convention. In the letter, Roosevelt provides a comprehensive defense of his foreign and domestic policies and outlines what he believes are the major differences between the Republican and Democratic parties in the upcoming election. Roosevelt discusses, among other topics, his position on international relations, antitrust legislation, tariffs, the gold standard, pensions for Civil War veterans, the military, civil service, commerce, agriculture, taxation, and self-government in the Philippines.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-09-12

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to George B. Cortelyou

Theodore Roosevelt quotes a letter from George B. Cortelyou on the “off chance” that Roosevelt’s correspondence is published. Cortelyou wrote to Roosevelt about the Northern Securities matter and that Cortelyou was running Roosevelt’s reelection campaign on a high moral plane. Roosevelt believes fully in Cortelyou’s integrity.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-08-15

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to George B. Cortelyou

The Northern Securities suit has been President Roosevelt’s greatest achievement. Roosevelt points out that Alton B. Parker’s campaign is one of adroit trickery. Roosevelt asks whether George B. Cortelyou will visit next week.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-08-11

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Owen Wister

President Roosevelt agrees with Owen Wister’s thoughts. Roosevelt is grateful to the American people even though he has had a great deal of work as president. Roosevelt notes his cabinet has been a huge support to him and is glad he owed the election to “Abraham Lincoln’s ‘plain people.'” The president expresses his frustration with certain journalists and newspapers who criticize Roosevelt about having too close of a connection with “the wicked” but who ignored Alton B. Parker’s “hand-in-glove intimacy” with James J. Hill, William F. Sheehan, and Thomas Taggart. Roosevelt acknowledges he has made mistakes, but many of the criticisms leveled at him are due to ignorance.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-11-19

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Philander C. Knox

President Roosevelt encloses letters from Senator Quay requesting approval of the application from the Perry Oil and Gas Company for a pipeline from the Kansas border through the Osage reservation in Oklahoma. Roosevelt may need to discuss the matter with Attorney General Knox after the arguments in the Northern Securities case.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-12-01