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This paper compares the policies on holding companies before and after the Great Depression. After the futile efforts of progressive administrations to regulate the holding companies in the 1910s, the laissez-faire policies of conservative administrations in the 1920s helped many big holding companies to emerge. The Great Depression revealed the dangers of mismanaged holding companies. Roosevelt strengthened the supervision of holding companies and levied a new tax on the inter-corporate dividends. Furthermore, he even introduced the public utility holding company act including so-called “death sentence” clauses. These policies successfully transformed the holding companies into the big independent corporations in the present U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]