Viewed from a historical perspective, policy change on government regulation has been astonishing. Congress has enacted regulatory statutes that, prior to the Progressive Era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, would have been considered improper exercises of government authority. By then, however, social pressure for reform was sufficiently strong that government had the backing to correct some of the excesses that resulted from the rapid industrialization of the 1800s. These included unsafe food and drugs, dangerous working conditions, and the domination of entire industries by monopolies. These social pressures also spurred major changes in business regulation during President Roosevelt's New Deal (Harris and Milks 1996). At first resistant to New Deal legislation, the Supreme Court eventually ruled many of these acts constitutional. In doing so, the Court reflected society's endorsement of these new powers of government.