Roosevelt Announces Northern Securities Antitrust Suit Against J.P. Morgan Railroad Trust

On February 19, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt’s Department of Justice announced plans to file an antitrust suit against the Northern Securities Company, a railroad holding company formed in November 1901 by J.P. Morgan, James J. Hill, and Edward H. Harriman to control the Great Northern Railroad, Northern Pacific Railroad, and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. Attorney General Philander Knox filed the suit on March 10, 1902, in federal circuit court in St. Paul under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The announcement shocked Wall Street and marked Roosevelt’s first major trust-busting action, establishing him as a serious threat to corporate monopolies. When Morgan complained he had not been warned about the suit, Roosevelt replied that was precisely the point. Morgan’s offer to have his lawyers “fix it up” with the Attorney General was declined—Roosevelt wanted to stop it, not negotiate. This case represented the first time a sitting president had used federal antitrust law against corporate interests rather than labor unions. The aggressive prosecution signaled a fundamental shift in the relationship between government and corporate power, establishing the precedent that even the most powerful financial interests were subject to federal regulation. The case would ultimately reach the Supreme Court and result in the company’s dissolution in 1904, the first major antitrust victory in U.S. history and a watershed moment for Progressive Era reform.