CLEP US History II

Answer: B - Benjamin Harrison signed the Sherman Antitrust Act into law in 1890, though he never employed it. The Sherman Antitrust Act prohibited numerous business practices that companies would use to monopolize their markets. It was designed to keep the marketplace competitive, to the benefit of the consumer. Harrison was generally considered a poor president because he mishandled the economy, evidenced, in part, by the fact that he never utilized the powerful market-regulating legislation he signed into law. (It had unanimous support in Congress, making it political suicide for him not to sign the bill.) Theodore Roosevelt later became known as the “trust-buster” president, largely because he employed the Sherman Antitrust Act so frequently and effectively.