As a man of the people, Theodore Roosevelt was known as a "Trust Buster", despite this, some historians believe that William McKinley began the trust busting era. Trust busting is the act of a government breaking up monopolies and trusts.Trusts increasingly became a important issue i, with fears that large corporations would impose unrealistic prices to defraud consumers and drive small, independent companies out through their monopolies. By 1904, there were 318 trusts, including those in railroads, local transit, and banking industry controlled two-fifths of the nation's industrial output. Under the president's leadership, the Attorney General brought 44 suits against monopolists. Notably, J. P. Morgan's Northern Securities Company, a huge
