What is "square deal"

n. fair treatment [syn: fair deal]

The Square Deal was President Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program. He explained in 1910:

When I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service.

His policies reflected three basic ideas: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. These three demands are often referred to as the "three C's" of Roosevelt's Square Deal. Thus, it aimed at helping middle class citizens and involved attacking plutocracy and bad trusts while at the same time protecting business from the most extreme demands of organized labor. A progressive Republican, Roosevelt believed in government action to mitigate social evils, and as president he in 1908 denounced "the representatives of predatory wealth” as guilty of “all forms of iniquity from the oppression of wage workers to unfair and unwholesome methods of crushing competition, and to defrauding the public by stock-jobbing and the manipulation of securities."

During his second term, Roosevelt tried to extend his Square Deal further, but was blocked by conservative Republicans in Congress. Roosevelt distrusted federal and state courts.

Square Deal is a tile game, where players are trying to empty their hand of tiles by playing them before their opponent. It was published by Winning Moves Games USA in 2008 and is the second of three games in their Brain-Ade line of quick puzzle games and features two multiplayer and a solitaire version. This game is no longer in production.

Square Deal is a United States presidential domestic program.

Square Deal may also refer to:

• Square Deal (game), a tile-based board game
• Square Deal: The Game of Two Dimensional Poker or Cadillac II, a Game Boy video game
• Square Deal Social & Pleasure Club, a jazz ensemble including Lionel Batiste
• A Square Deal, a radio show featuring Hubert Gregg
• Square Deal, an artwork by Lorna Simpson
• Square Deal, a sitcom created by Richard Ommanney
• Square Deal, a 1988 TV show featuring Beth Porter
• A Square Deal, a 1917 film with cinematography by Arthur Edeson
• Square Deal, a publication company started by Reshard Gool, partner of Hilda Woolnough
• Square Deal, a 1982 album by Mick Jackson
• Square Deal, a 2003 album by The Wailing Souls
• The Square Deal, a series of Car Warriors novels by David Drake