Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company

The problem was more than inattention.

At the height of the panic of 1907, Elbert Gary and Henry Clay Frick came to the White House to ask whether the government would object U.S. Steel absorbed the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company, its largest southern competitor.

Roosevelt said he could not advise it, but would not stop it.

Taft's Justice Department sued over that transaction in 1911, and in 1920, the Supreme Court declined to break the company up.