The Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914

The Federal Trade Commission Act was originally a bill that was instigated by president Woodrow Wilson.  The bill for Federal Trade Commission Act was created to the image President Wilson’s had in mind. When he suggested an investigatory commission in January 1914, the House of Representatives agreed with his proposal. When he proposed a prosecutorial commission in June, the Senate bill and final law embraced that proposal. When he later brought up the agency’s assistive abilities, his selection of Commissioners reflected that of a strong leadership(Winerman, 38).

The Federal Trade Commission Act has an interesting history.  Unlike most bills, it actually came from the hand of the President of the United States.  He did not necessarily write the entire bill himself, but he is the man who ordered to have it written, followed by having it presented to congress starting on the Senate floor.  The bill was proposed along side the Clayton Act.  They are both essential bills meant to reaffirm and give more power to the Sherman Act of 1890.  The Sherman Act had the express ability to bust trusts, like big gas, oil, sugar and etcetera. Big companies were making agreements with each other that would give trusts the ability to increase the cost and reduce the quality of goods without penalty.  The Sherman Act was pushed through congress quickly and put an end to these trusts, which helped the economy and generally improved the quality of life for millions of consumers.  However the Sherman Act of 1890 still didn't quite have enough power to end all unfair business practices.

There was another form of anti competitive business practice that the Sherman Act wasn't quite able to rid of, the merging of big companies into coercive monopolies.  When multiple companies selling the same product merge they become a monopoly and can have the ability to control in full the price of the goods they supply to the market.  This represents the new need for the Clayton act.  Since monopolies weren’t considered trusts the Sherman Act could do nothing about it, it didn’t have the power to prosecute or break up monopolies.  So in comes the Clayton Act of 1914 alongside the Federal Trade Commission Act.   The Clayton Act had the power to break up monopolies and prevent mergers that are likely to stifle competition.  The Clayton Act would effectively come in and close the loopholes that the Sherman Act had, creating a stronger wall defending against anti competitive and unfair business practices(Oppenheim, 821-854).

The President of the time, Woodrow Wilson, saw a need for an agency specifically dedicated to watching out for and preventing anti competitive business practice.  Wilson announced his antitrust initiative to Congress on January 20, 1914. Quoting multiple Democratic platforms, he declared “We are all agreed that ‘private monopoly is indefensible and intolerable.’”(Brown; 301 H.R. Doc. No. 625, 63d Cong., 2d Sess. 5 (1914)).  

The Federal Trade Commission Bill was presented on January 20th, 1914 at a joint session of the 63rd Congress of the United States(Stevens, 840).  President Wilson, with respect to creating the Federal Trade Commission to handle breaking up trusts and anticompetitive business strategies stated:

“The opinion of the country would instantly approve of such a commission(FTC).  It would not wish to see it empowered to make terms with monopoly or in any sort to assume control of business, as if the government made itself responsible.  It demands such a commission only as an indispensable instrument of information and publicity, as a clearinghouse for the facts by which both the public mind and the managers of great business undertakings should be guided, and as instrumentality for doing justice to business where the processes of the courts or the natural forces of correction outside the courts are inadequate to adjust the remedy to the wrong in a way that will meet all the equities and circumstances of the case(Daish, 46).”  

His words sparked a strong support base for his bill, both in congress and from the general public.  The response to the bill from the progressive platform was supportive:

“To that end we urge the establishment of  strong Federal administrative commission of high standing, which shall maintain permanent active supervision over industrial corporations engaged in interstate commerce, or such of them as are of public importance doing for them what the government now dos for the nation banks, and what is now done for the railroads by the interstate commerce commission.”  

Said the Progressive Platform 1912(Daish, 46).   The Republican Platform declared:

“In the enforcement and administration of Federal laws governing interstate commerce and enterprises impressed with a public use engaged therein, there is much that may be committed to a Federal Trade Commission, thus placing in the hands of an administrative board many of the functions now necessarily exercised by the courts.  This will promote promptness in the administration of the laws and avoid delays and technicalities incident to court procedure(Daish, 45).”  

The Republicans gave more support to the Federal Trade Commission Act.  The bill for the FTC Act now had a bipartisan backing and approval.

After a bipartisan and mutual backing of the bill from the majorities of both parties, it’s not difficult to see why congress backed and passed the bill so willingly. The Bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Clayton, whom the Clayton Act is named after, and was introduced in the Senate by Senator Newlands as S. 4160(Stevens, 841).  The Senate approved the bill on September 8th by a 43-5 vote and the House of Representatives  passed the bill on September 10th by a voice vote(FTC.gov).

After congress passed the bill with a march of support from both key parties, it went to the desk of President Wilson.  Wilson’s bill was drafted, posted, passed by Congress, and finally made it to his desk to sign into law, which he eagerly did, on September 26th, 1914.  It took less than a year and his mission had to come to fruition and because of his work, there would now be an agency to defend against trusts and monopolies.  This would come to benefit the economy, the general public, and small business helping to continue to effectively support and continue to generate the “American Dream.”

Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914

Annotated Bibliography:

Brown, George Dobbin. An Essay Towards a Bibliography of the Published Writings and Addresses

     of Woodrow Wilson, 1910-1917. Vol. 2. Library of Princeton University, 1917(301 H.R. Doc.  

    No. 625, 63d Cong., 2d Sess. 5 (1914)).

          Daish, John.  “The Yale Law Journal,” Vol. 24, No. 1 (Nov., 1914), pp. 43-55,

                Published by: The Yale Law Journal Company, Inc., Stable URL:     

                http://www.jstor.org/stable/785953

The significance of this article by John Daish and its usefulness is directly related to the fact that it gives a picture of how the people saw coercive monopolies and why the public didn’t want to enable them.  It gives a view of why unfair business practices were seen as a problem in the first place and who was there to voice their opinions about it.

Oppenheim, S. Chesterfield. "Guides to Harmonizing Section 5 of the Federal Trade

    Commission    Act with the Sherman and Clayton Acts." Michigan Law Review

    (1961): 821-854.

This article provides information on section 5 of the FTC Act as well as illuminating some connections it has to the Clayton and Sherman Acts.  

Stevens, W. H. S.  “The American Economic Review”, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Dec., 1914), pp.

    840-855, Published by: American Economic Association, Stable URL:                              

                http://www.jstor.org/stable/1806005

In The American Economic Review, Stevens gives a good record of the presidents meeting and speech that led to and allowed the creation for the act.  

Winerman, Marc. "The origins of the FTC: concentration, cooperation, control, and

      competition.”        Antitrust Law Journal (2003): 1-97.

This Article is very detailed in all aspects of the origins of the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Act, and how it was influenced by the Sherman Act.  

https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/our-history

       Everything that there is to know about the FTC Act is available at this url.  Where

       I have cited FTC.gov this is the assosciated link.  

History of Coffee 

The Evolution of Coffee in North American Society

Trevor Ladd - April 12, 2015 

Coffee, as the millennials know it , is very different then their parents knew coffee.  Their parents viewed coffee in a very different way than their parents knew it, and so on and so forth, coffee has gone from non-existent to ubiquitous and abundant in the United States.  There have been generations where coffee was rarely if ever drank or talked about, followed by generations of excessive coffee consumption.  In the 1950s coffee was a very cheap product that most would hardly have been able to differentiate from drinking battery acid.  It was very cheaply and artificially processed, pre-ground, and even the scent in the can was artificial and inserted before sealing.  Today, almost any run of the mill Starbucks enthusiast or drinker of fine espresso would look down their nose at someone who drinks coffee from a brand such as Folger’s or Maxwell House.  These coffee brands have been mass produced in a very artificial and gross method.  There have been several coffee revolutions in North America.  Coming from small and disappointing beginnings as habitual drinkers of unexceptional coffee, commonplace in the 1950s, to what North American society has become today, one of the biggest capitols for coffee snobs in the world.   

Never more so in North American history has society loved fine, specialty coffee and espresso as much.  Before there was a Starbucks or Peet’s Coffee on nearly every street in the United States, there was a big market for at home coffee brewing.  The standard, baby-boomer American household would always have a can of pre-ground, scoop-able Folger’s or Maxwell House brand coffee ready to boil in the percolator on the stove top.  If one were to observe some old and remarkably sexist coffee commercials from the 1950s and 1960s, it’s easy to what the the household standard was.  Normally, the woman of the house would have to get up bright and early and boil up some coffee in the percolator for the man of the house to take with him to work to make sure he’d start his day right and put a smile on his face.  However, many commercials also depicted the tongue lashings the woman of the house would get if she didn’t make the coffee just right or use the right brand of grounds.  In a Folger’s Instant Coffee Commercial in the 1960s there is a scene depicted of a woman trying to figure out what to do to fix her and her husbands relationship and what to get him for his birthday.  “Harvey, want anything special for your birthday?” to which he retorted with angst,  “Just a descent cup of coffee… I’m serious, honey your coffee’s undrinkable!” She then, looking tongue tied and saddened says “That’s pretty harsh.”  He follows up with a very lividly stated and hurtful response, “Well so is your coffee!  You know, the girls down at the office make better coffee on their hot plates!” Subtly implying that she needs to be worried that he’s going to cheat on her with “the girls in the office” because they make better coffee.  So of course she steps up her game and buys some Folger’s Instant Coffee and  makes if for him on his birthday and it makes him happy and fixes their relationship.   This goes to show how sexist our country was, that this strong sexism was even in brought out in mainstream advertising.  

Because of heavy ad campaigns from these coffee corporations, nearly every coffee drinking household in the United States had their fair share of the ready mix sludge that these corporations generated, ready to boil and burn, and almost always the woman would make the coffee for her husband.  Luckily, with much thanks for feminism and the equal rights movement, women aren’t as objectified as much as they used to be.  But companies like Folger’s, Maxwell House, and Chase and Sanborn certainly didn’t stand up for women in the matter of equality, as is evident in a coffee ad from Chase and Sanborn approving of spousal abuse in the case that a woman isn’t “store-testing” for fresh coffee(4).  

The next coffee wave, so to speak, has its roots placed in the 1960s when Alfred Peet opened up his own coffee chain on the now famous Vine Street of Berkeley California.  Alfred Peet brought high quality coffee to the United States in a way that hadn’t yet been done.  He is considered the founder of what became a delicacy; specialty coffee. His method was profound, he believed in making smaller batches, maintaining peak freshness, using the highest quality beans, and brewing on the darkest, strongest, most flavorful coffee.  Alfred Peet turned coffee brewing into an art in a way that had not yet been done in North America.   But that is not to say coffee hadn’t been treated this way in countries other than the United States prior to Alfred Peet. In fact, he merely replicated the coffee making practices that his homeland, the Netherlands, had been practicing for many years and started to put them to use in the States.  It is said that Peet was entirely dissatisfied with the way coffee was treated in the United States, that he could not understand why the citizens of the United States would want to drink coffee as if it were army rationed(1).   He believed that coffee should always be brewed from freshly ground beans, beans that were picked at the height of their flavor and

freshness. 

Alfred Peet started a revolution here in the United States.  His ingenuity and care for his craft paved the way for a new market.  After people started to taste what fresh, real, and strong coffee tasted like from the highest quality beans, people started to steer away from the standard “army rationed” brands, as Peet would call them, such as Folger's and Maxwell House.  After tasting quality, there was a dissatisfaction that arose with the “army rationed’ brands and vastly people began to steer to the direction of quality specialty beans.  This opened up a new market for coffee houses, and for consumer buying fresh whole beans.  Peet, in essence, started the specialty coffee revolution  He would import the beans in large, brown, burlap sacks and sell them whole in little brown bags.  But it wouldn’t have been considered a coffee house by the standards we go by today, it was more along the lines of a place just do buy your beans and/or have them ground, however you could still by a brewed cup of coffee on location.  Because of his igniting the speciality, quality coffee revolution he has been labeled “The dutchman who taught America how to drink coffee.” 

As is broadly know, Starbucks is the biggest coffee house chain in the world, and it has held it’s ground as the head of the market since the early days of the company’s inception.  When Starbucks first opened in Seattle in 1971, coffee drinkers were craving something new.  They already had the cheap and lower quality rationed brands like Folger’s and Maxwell House, then came the specialty high quality coffee from Alfred Peet, and Starbucks was the next frontier for coffee enthusiasts.

Starbucks was founded by three friends who met while in school attending the University of San Francisco.  English teacher Jerry Baldwin, history teacher Zev Siegl, and writer Gordon Bowker jointly founded the Starbucks corporation in 1971(Time Out Guide San Francisco).  It is said that they gained their inspiration for starting the company from being taught to roast beans by Alfred Peet.  After that experience they felt the need to create their own high quality speciality coffees and sell them.  They founded their business at Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington(Dorling Kindersley)and they bought their beans through the man who taught them how to roast coffee, Alfred Peet. The name Starbucks came from the chief-mate Starbuck from their mutually favored book Moby Dick, they added the “s” at the end because they felt it sounded a little better that way.  The name immediately stuck with people, and after they opened their doors for the first time it was the opening for a new revolution of coffee drinkers.  Starbucks started a lot like Peet’s coffee did, but unlike Alfred Peet, they brought even more specialty coffee drinking possibilities to the table by bringing in Howard Schultz.   Schultz traveled worldwide, searching for new methods of coffee making and inspiration for their company.  The inspiration hit when he observed many cafés in Milan(Biography.com).  This is when he realized that nobody in the United States was doing this, if he brought mainstream espresso to their company then they would become even more massive than they were because they would be the only company in North America that could respond to the demand of a product that they themselves would be the first to introduce to the America market on the broad scale.  It was a provocative idea, and turned out to be one of the most valuable ideas the Starbucks ever utilized(Florence Fabricant).  In 1986 Starbucks unleashed their espresso drinks, and suddenly they boomed.  Starbucks had lines out the door and through the roof in all their stores for this new and even higher quality beverage.  The turnout was remarkable, astonishing, and created the “Starbucksian” revolution of espresso drinkers.  They founded another new and unexplored facet of the coffee market, espresso, and as of today, Starbucks still firmly holds their place at the top of it.  

Today, society is experiencing a new revolution in coffee.  In cities like Portland, OR, Seattle, OR, Austin, TX, and Sacramento, CA there are large and growing abundances of a new cultural facet known as the hipsters.  Hipsters can be described as those who want to be original, do things differently, and do things first.  They are a part of our population that is becoming the majority in urban areas, and don’t want to be part characterized as part of the main crowd, the main stream.  If everyone is going to Starbucks, which they are, then the hipsters won’t want to go to Starbucks as much.  Starbucks has become the main stream coffee house chain in North America, and the world.  People like it too much, it appeals to too broad of a range of people, everybody goes there, and it’s generally a positive thing to people.   However, hipsters can’t be the same as everyone else, they won’t be able to call themselves a part of the counter-culture if they do what the rest of society does.  Starbucks has been placed on the back burner by hipsters.  It’s now their secondary coffee shop them, they’ll only go if there are no other options.   Amongst this facet of society Starbucks is no longer trending, but the hole in the wall, “mom and pop” coffee house will be their first destination in the hunt for a fine cup of coffee or espresso.  

Many cities are becoming more and more densely populated with people that only want to drink their coffee from the most scarcely heard of hole in the wall coffee bars that man can’t find.  It’s the new and unexplored coffee frontier that the hipster are dipping into, and it’s a growing trend at that.  Society is, by it’s own will, slowly drifting away from mainstream and towards the lesser known coffee shops.  This is the new coffee revolution, the one that is paving the way for the advancement in a new coffee market.  A market dedicated to coffee houses with a keen skill for generating the abstract, for creating an environment that is unique, original, and above all, able to generate the highest of quality in espresso drinks available that the world has yet to taste.  

Works Cited:

1.) http://nos.nl/artikel/64234-nederlander-leerde-amerika-koffie-drinken.html

2.) Time Out (2011). Time Out Guide San Francisco. Time Out Guides. 

3.) http://www.biography.com/people/howard-schultz-21166227#birth-of-the-modern-starbucks

4.)http://www.purpleclover.com/entertainment/694-sexist-ads/item/very_sexist_ads_640_14/

5.) Stephen Brewer; Constance Brissenden; Anita Carmin (26 September 2012). DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Pacific Northwest. Dorling Kindersley. pp. 135

6.)Florence Fabricant (2 September 1992). "Americans Wake Up and Smell the Coffee". The New York Times.