Former President Teddy Roosevelt returned to Harvard for his 30th reunion and graduation in 1910, and as he entered the proceedings all his classmates ... turned their backs on him in unison. TR's latest biographer Edmund Morris believes this shocking snub in public of a former President was due to TR's strong belief in regulating Wall Street, breaking up monopolies and not allowing a few wealthy men run the nation. Think of that extraordinary event; some 22 years before TR's 5th cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt was called a traitor to his class," Teddy was getting the same treatment. The Gilded Age was followed by the Progressive Era of tough laws and court actions against Robber Barons who controlled state legislatures and Congress with their anti-trust legislation. Then came the Roaring Twenties and the Crash, followed by the Great Depression - and then the New Deal - which created the blessed Glass-Steagall Act - which separated investment banking from commercial banking, plus the WPA and other ... work programs that gave the unemployed a reason for living and put food in their mouths. Both Roosevelts ... stabilized the financial industry to help finance American industry. Once again, the wealthy ... want to cut social programs to the retired and the middle class, while holding onto all their gains, even in death if the estate tax is deep sixed.
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