President Roosevelt- Initial Perspective

    
Although he was the one who eventually signed the act, Roosevelt was at first inclined to deny all charges against the factories, and at first refused to accept Sinclair's views, calling him a "crackpot" for his social opinions. Once, he wrote privately to William Allen White:

"I have an utter contempt for him. He is hysterical, unbalanced, and untruthful. Three-fourths of the things he said were absolute falsehoods. For some of the remainder there was only a basis of truth."

Similarly, he did not always support the muckraking journalists who exposed what they considered "cooperate injustices" to the general public. When David Phillips, one of the progressive-minded journalists, accused the politicians of the time for blindly supporting factories rather than the citizens of the united states, Roosevelt accused him (with no humor) of being a man with a "muck-rake."

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Rethinking the Situation

After The Jungle was published, Roosevelt accepted a number of Sinclair's statements and this time wrote:

 "Radical action must be taken to do away with the efforts of arrogant and selfish greed on the part of the capitalist."

He ordered Charles Niell, a labor commissioner, and James Bronson, a social worker, to inspect and investigate some of Chicago's meat packig facilities. In the era of reform, Roosevelt came to value regulation, saying that although "the corporation is here to stay" it must operate "with due regard of the public as a whole." 

For more about Roosevelt's evolving opinion on the subject, click here for an interview with Professor Margaret O'Mara