Reply #22: I know you're trying to be funny, but that's the single most uninformed

[DS1]

comment on DU this week.

Wilson experienced early success by implementing his "New Freedom" pledges of antitrust modification, tariff revision, and reform in banking and currency matters. He discovered the political solution that would allow the anti-bank wing of his party, led by William Jennings Bryan to allow creation of a national banking system, the Federal Reserve System.

Wilson broke with the "big-lawsuit" tradition of his predecessors William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt as "Trustbusters", finding a new approach to encouraging competition through the Federal Trade Commission, which stopped "unfair" trade practices. In addition he pushed through Congress the Clayton Antitrust Act making certain business practices illegal (such as price discrimination, agreements forbidding retailers from handling other companies’ products, and directorates and agreements to control other companies). The power of this legislation was greater than previous anti-trust laws, because individual officers of corporations could be held responsible if their companies violated the laws, bringing the consequences closer to home. More importantly, the new laws set out clear guidelines that corporations could follow, a dramatic improvement over the previous uncertainties. This law was considered the "Magna Carta" of labor by Samuel Gompers because it legally lifted human labor out of the category of "a commodity or article of commerce".

:hi: