Roosevelt Creates Bureau of Corporations and Department of Commerce and Labor

On February 14, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Act to Establish the Department of Commerce and Labor, creating the ninth cabinet-level executive department and establishing the Bureau of Corporations as an investigatory agency within it. The Bureau was specifically designed to study and report on industry, investigating monopolistic practices and corporate abuses. Roosevelt skillfully used opposition from business leaders to build public support for the bill, publicizing a letter from John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil attorney protesting governmental interference, which Roosevelt portrayed as evidence of the economic injustice the Bureau would combat. George B. Cortelyou became the first Secretary of Commerce and Labor, with James Rudolph Garfield serving as the first Commissioner of the Bureau of Corporations. The Bureau conducted investigations of petroleum, meatpacking, tobacco, steel, lumber, and other industries. Its 1906 report on petroleum transportation informed the Hepburn Act of 1906 and provided evidence used to successfully prosecute and break up Standard Oil in 1911. However, the Bureau’s creation also revealed limitations in Roosevelt’s Progressive reforms: through “gentlemen’s agreements,” corporations like U.S. Steel and International Harvester were allowed to open records to investigators on condition that nothing would be made public without their consent, effectively giving corporate interests veto power over embarrassing disclosures. The Bureau’s dual nature—both regulatory enforcer and corporate collaborator—exemplified the tensions between Roosevelt’s trust-busting rhetoric and his pragmatic acceptance of “good trusts” that cooperated with government oversight.