Robber Barrons

To what extent was it justified to characterize the industrial leaders of the late 19th century as either “robber barons” or “captains of industry”?
Document A

Q: How is the freight and passenger pool working?
W.V.: Very satisfactorily. I don’t like that expression “pool”, however, that’s a common construction applied by the people to a combination which the leading roads have entered into to keep rates at a point where they will pay dividends to the stockholders. The railroads are not run for the benefit of the “dear public” – that cry is all nonsense—they are built by men who invest their money and expect to get a fair percentage of the same.
Q: Does your limited express pay?
W.V.: No; not a bit of it. We only run it because we are forced to do so by the action of the Pennsylvania road. It doesn’t pay expenses. We would abandon it if it was not for our competitor keeping its train on.
Q: But don’t you run it for the public benefit?
W.V.: The public be damned. What does the public care for the railroads except to get as much out of them for as small consideration as possible? I don’t take any stock in this silly nonsense about working for anybody’s good by our own…. Interview with William H. Vanderbilt, Chicago Daily News, October 9, 1882

Document B

Document C

Document D The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmony. The conditions of human life have been revolutionized within the past few hundred years. The contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us today measures the change which has come with civilization. This change, however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as highly beneficial. It is essential for the progress of the race that the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in literature and the arts, rather than none should be so. Much better this great inequity that universal squalor… The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is also great; but the advantages of this law are also greater still. For it is to this law that we owe our wonderful material development which brings improved conditions. While the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few; and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race. Andrew Carnegie, “Wealth,” North American Review, 1889

Document F I say that you ought to get rich, and it is your duty to get rich. How many of my pious brethren say to me, “Do you, a Christian minister, spend your time going up and down the country advising young people to get rich, to get money?” “Yes, of course I do.” They say, “Isn’t that awful! Why don’t you preach the gospel instead of preaching about man’s making money?” “Because to make money honestly is to preach the gospel.” The men who get rich may be the most honest men you find in the community… Let me say here clearly, and say it briefly…that ninety-eight out of one hundred of the rich men in America are honest. That is why they are rich. That is why they are trusted with money. That is why they carry on great enterprises and find plenty of people to work with them. It is because they are honest men…. Russell H. Conwell, Acres of Diamonds, 1900
Document E It is clear that trusts are contrary to public policy and hence in conflict with the common law. They are monopolies organized to destroy competition and restrain trade… It is contended by those interested in trusts that they tend to cheapen production and diminish the price of the article to the consumer…Trusts are speculative in their purpose and formed to make money. Once they secure control of a given line of business, they are masters of the situation and can dictate to the two great classes with theich they deal—the producer of the raw material and the consumer of the finished product. They limit the price of the raw material so as to impoverish the producer, drive him to a single market, reduce the price of every class of labor connected with the trade, throw out of employment large numbers of persons who had before been engaged in a meritorious calling and finally…they increase the price to the consumer… The main weapons of the trust are threats, intimidation, bribery, fraud, wreck, and pillage. Take one well-authenticated instance in the history of the Oat Meal Trust as an example. In 1887 this trust decided that part of the mill should stand idle. They were accordingly closed. This resulted in the discharge of a large number of laborers who had to suffer in consequence. The mills which continued in operation would produce seven million barrels of meal during the year. Shortly after shutting down, the trust advanced the price of meal one dollar per barrel, and the public was forced to stand the assessment. The mills were more profitable when idle than when in operation. James B. Weaver, A Call to Action, 1892

Document G
Document G
Document H The captains of industry and the capitalists…if they are successful, win, in these days, great fortunes in a short time. There are no earnings which are more legitimate or for which greater services are rendered to the whole industrial body. The popular notions about this matter really assume that all the wealth accumulated by these classes of persons would be here just the same if they had not existed. They are supposed to have appropriated it out of the common stock. This is so far from being the true that, on the contrary, their own wealth would not be but for themselves; and besides that, millions more of wealth, manifold greater than their own, scattered in the hands of thousands, would not exist but for them. William Graham Sumner, Forum, March 1894

Document I
List of major gifts given by John D. Rockefeller by the time of his death in 1937.

American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, New York City $6,845,688.52
American Baptist Home Mission Society, New York City $6,994,831.62
American Baptist Missionary Society, Dayton, Ohio $1,902,132.58
General Education Board $129,209,167.10
Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, New York $73,985,313.77
Minister and Missionaries Benefit Board Of Northern Baptist Convention $7,090,579.06
Rockefeller Foundation, New York $182,851,480.90
Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research $59,931,891.62
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois $34,708,375.28
Yale University, New Haven $1,001,000.00
Y.M.C.A., International Committee $2,295,580.73 TOTAL: [$506,816,041.18]
Document J

Average Daily Hours and Average Daily Wages in US Manufacturing: 1892

Industry Average Daily Hours Average Daily Wages
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Textiles 10.20 $1.09

Shoemaking 9.81 $1.58

Paper makers 10.87 $1.33

Machine shop workers 10.06 $1.87

Iron and steel workers 10.67 $1.81

All industries 10.04 $1.46
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Note: $600 a year supported a typical six member family

Note: In 1900 Andrew Carnegie personally made $23,000,000. Figuring that
Carnegie worked a 50-hour week and a 50-week year, Carnegie’s hourly “wage” in
1900 would have been equal to $9,200, His daily “wage” was therefore about
$92,000.

Source: Adapted from Historical Statistics of the United States, Part 1. Bureau of the Census, Washington D.C., 1975. Were the great industrialists of the nineteenth century Robber Barons or Captains of Industry?

Name _______________________________________________________ Date _____________ Per ______ Use the documents provided to complete the chart below. Document | Does the document support the industrialists as robber barons or captains of industry? | Describe the evidence from the document that supports this. | Document _____ | | | Document _____ | | | Document _____ | | | Document _____ | | | Document _____ | | | Document _____ | | | Document _____ | | | Document _____ | | | Document _____ | | | To what extent was it justified to characterize the industrial leaders of the late 19th century as either “robber barons” or “captains of industry”?