Which sentence explains Roosevelt's opinion of the role of the federal government in combating bad trusts? The worst of the big trusts have always endeavored to keep alive the feeling in favor of having the states themselves, and not the Nation,
attempt to do this work, because they know that in the long run such effort would be ineffective. There is no surer way to prevent all successful
effort to deal with the trusts than to insist that they be dealt with in the States rather than by the Nation, or to create a conflict between the
States and the Nation on the subject. The well-meaning ignorant man who advances such a proposition does as much damage as if he were
hired by the trusts themselves, for he is playing the game of every big crooked corporation in the country. The only effective way in which to
regulate the trusts is through the exercise of the collective power of our people as a whole through the Governmental agencies established by
the Constitution for this very purpose.
-Theodore Roosevelt