Why aren't there 'Theodore Roosevelt' in Korea

In the early nineteen hundreds, President Theodore Roosevelt enforced the Sherman Anti-Trust Law against the only railroad company [trust] that a group of wealth American businessmen formed jointly.

Roosevelt said he would no compromise in enforcing the law. He asked the Supreme Court to break up the railroad trust. “We are not attacking these big companies. We are only trying to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them. But we believe they must be controlled to serve the public good.” The Supreme Court eventually ruled against the railroad trust.

Theodore Roosevelt also successfully coordinated the coal miners’ strikes of 1902 after many complications.

The present President smashed the hardlined Korean Confederation of Trade Unions as soon as he took office. The unions were gradually softened to continual governmental threats. Now the horned bull was changed to a meek sheep.

Some experts friendly to medium- and small-sized companies have criticized that big companies, especially conglomerates, squeeze extra ‘profits’ out of them. But it is also problematic that the medium and small companies are dependent upon the big ones excessively without technological and managerial efforts.

The President stressed many times that the conglomerates and subcontractors get along with each other. Recently the President referred to the big companies’ unfair dealing with subcontractors and lukewarm new employment. At the President’s saying, the conservative press criticized the President as anti-corporatism and anti-marketism. In my opinion, however, the Korean conservative presses are anti-medium and small company and anti-people. The conservative presses write the conglomerates and their descendants as celebrities and describe them as heroes or patriots contributing to exporting. They are not s journalism, but a press merchant for ads.

In Korea, the President must make efforts to be similar to Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt simply did not referred to it but showed himself the conducts. (The end)