history paper

A D o c u m e n t a r y R e a d e r

EDITED BY

WILLIAM A. LINK AND SUSANNAH J. LINK

THE

GILDED AGE AND

PROGRESSIVE ERA

EDITED BY

LINK AND

LINK

U n c o v e r i n g T h e P a s t D o c u m e n t a r y R e a d e r s i n A m e r i c a n H i s t o r y

“This treasure trove of documents is a terrifi c classroom resource. The Links chose carefully to achieve geographic, chronological, and thematic balance. The book’s organization represents all aspects of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era and ties them together interpretatively. Professors will fi nd themselves assigning documents from the reader week after week. This is one of the most useful teaching books I’ve seen.”

Glenda Gilmore, Yale University

“Three cheers for William and Susannah Link, whose documentary reader offers interpretive structure and focus alongside its thoughtfully chosen collection of primary sources. This reader is authoritative while still compact, giving enough points of view to spark controversy without closing down conversation. It is the perfect companion to the US survey or more specialized courses in modern American history.”

Jane Dailey, University of Chicago

“Wisely selected fi rst-person accounts coupled with the editors’ trenchant introductions bring to life civics and society at the dawn of modern America. It is a valuable resource that will engage students.”

Andrew Haley, University of Southern Mississippi

Following the conclusion of the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Progressive Era brought a wholesale restructuring of social and political institutions. The period from the 1870s through World War I was characterized by the nationalization of American life, the establishment of the United States as a global power, the refashioning of social relationships, and the reconstruction of the political system.

This volume gathers together documents that illustrate the variety of experiences and themes involved in the transformation of American political, economic, and social systems during this period, and presents the essential perspectives of race, class, gender, and culture. Situating the documents within their historical context, the book is divided into fi ve thematic sections: the American frontier after Reconstruction; the transformations that arrived with industrialization; the social and political crisis that gripped the United States at the end of the nineteenth century; reform; imperialism and war.

This collection enables readers to engage actively in historical interpretation and to understand the interplay between social and political forces in the period, exploring the experiences of people during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era from a variety of diverse perspectives.

William A. Link is Richard J. Milbauer Professor of History at the University of Florida. His publications include Roots of Secession: Slavery and Politics in Antebellum Virginia (2003) and Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of Modern American Conservatism (2008).

Susannah J. Link is instructor in American history at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

Cover image: ‘The Trust Giant’s Point of View’, cartoon by Horace Taylor showing John D. Rockefeller holding the White House and President McKinley in the palm of his hand, 1900. © Photos 12/Alamy.

Cover design by Simon Levy

T H

E G

IL D

E D

A G

E A

N D

P R

O G

R E

S S

IV E

E R

A

Uncovering the Past: Documentary Readers in American History Series Editors: Steven Lawson and Nancy Hewitt

The books in this series introduce students in American history courses to two important dimensions of historical analysis. They enable students to engage actively in historical interpretation, and they further students’ understanding of the interplay between social and political forces in historical developments.

Consisting of primary sources and an introductory essay, these readers are aimed at the major courses in the American history curriculum, as outlined further below. Each book in the series will be approximately 225–250 pages, including a 25–30‐page introduction addressing key issues and questions about the subject under consideration, a discussion of sources and method- ology, and a bibliography of suggested secondary readings.

Published

Paul G.E. Clemens The Colonial Era: A Documentary Reader

Sean Patrick Adams The Early American Republic: A Documentary Reader

Stanley Harrold The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Documentary Reader

Steven Mintz African American Voices: A Documentary Reader, 1619–1877

Robert P. Ingalls and David K. Johnson The United States Since 1945: A Documentary Reader

Camilla Townsend American Indian History: A Documentary Reader

Steven Mintz Mexican American Voices: A Documentary Reader

Brian Ward The 1960s: A Documentary Reader

Nancy Rosenbloom Women in American History Since 1880: A Documentary Reader

Jeremi Suri American Foreign Relations Since 1898: A Documentary Reader

Carol Faulkner Women in American History to 1880: A Documentary Reader

David Welky America Between the Wars, 1919–1941: A Documentary Reader

William A. Link and Susannah J. Link The Gilded Age and Progressive Era: A Documentary Reader

ffirs.indd iiffirs.indd ii 11/24/2011 3:07:14 PM11/24/2011 3:07:14 PM

The Gilded Age and Progressive Era

A Documentary Reader

Edited by William A. Link

and Susannah J. Link

A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication

ffirs.indd iiiffirs.indd iii 11/24/2011 3:07:15 PM11/24/2011 3:07:15 PM

This edition first published 2012 © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Limited

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley‐Blackwell.

Registered Office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148–5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley‐blackwell .

The right of William A. Link and Susannah J. Link to be identified as the authors of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data

The Gilded Age and Progressive Era : a documentary reader / edited by William A. Link and Susannah J. Link. p. cm. – (Uncovering the past : documentary readers in American history ; 12) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4443-3138-7 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-4443-3139-4 (paperback) 1. United States–History–1865-1921–Sources. 2. United States–Politics and government–1865-1933–Sources. 3. United States–Social conditions–1865-1918–Sources. 4. Progressivism (United States politics)–Sources. I. Link, William A. II. Link, Susannah J. E661.G455 2012 973.8–dc23

2011034658

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Set in 10/12.5pt Sabon by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India

1 2012

ffirs.indd ivffirs.indd iv 11/24/2011 3:07:15 PM11/24/2011 3:07:15 PM

70 The Gilded Age and Progressive Era

our civilization. It is founded upon the present most intense individualism, and the race is prepared to put it in practice by degrees whenever it pleases. Under its sway we shall have an ideal state, in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense, the property of the many, because administered for the common good, and this wealth, passing through the hands of the few, can be made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if it had been distributed in small sums to the people them- selves. Even the poorest can be made to see this, and to agree that great sums gathered by some of their fellow -citizens and spent for public purposes, from which the masses reap the principal benefit, are more valuable to them than if scattered among them through the course of many years in trifling amounts.

. . .

This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and after doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial result for the community—the man of wealth thus becoming the sole agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer—doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.

2 Herbert Spencer, “The Coming Slavery,” 1884 3

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) was a British journalist and social theorist who coined the term “survival of the fittest” in applying Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theories to human social interaction and whose ideas had an important influence upon Gilded Age American social thought. Andrew Carnegie and William Graham Sumner, among other business leaders of the late nineteenth century, used Spencer’s theory to justify ruthless capitalism.

The following excerpt is from a series of four essays that Spencer wrote in 1884 to expand on and confirm some of the predictions he had made in an article he wrote in 1860. Spencer’s views on the plight of the poor, presented

3 Popular Science Monthly XXIV (April 1884): 721–2.

c04.indd 70c04.indd 70 11/24/2011 3:04:24 PM11/24/2011 3:04:24 PM

Big Business 71

here, clearly shocked those who believed that government and private wealth could be used to improve conditions in society.

[2] THE COMING SLAVERY

The kinship of pity to love is shown among other ways in this, that it ideal- izes its object. Sympathy with one in suffering suppresses, for the time being, remembrance of his transgressions. The feeling which vents itself in “poor fellow!” on seeing one in agony, excludes the thought of “bad fellow,” which might at another time arise. Naturally, then, if the wretched are unknown or but vaguely known, all the demerits they may have are ignored; and thus it happens that when, as just now, the miseries of the poor are depicted, they are thought of as the miseries of the deserving poor, instead of being thought of, as in large measure they should be, as the miseries of the undeserving poor. Those whose hardships are set forth in pamphlets and proclaimed in sermons and speeches which echo throughout society, are assumed to be all worthy souls, grievously wronged; and none of them are thought of as bearing the penalties of their own misdeeds.

On hailing a cab in a London street, it is surprising how frequently the door is officiously opened by one who expects to get something for his trouble. The surprise lessens after counting the many loungers about tavern‐ doors, or after observing the quickness with which a street‐performance, or procession, draws from neighbouring slums and stable‐yards a group of idlers. Seeing how numerous they are in every small area, it becomes manifest that tens of thousands of such swarm through London. “They have no work,” you say. Say rather that they either refuse work or quickly turn themselves out of it. They are simply good‐for‐nothings, who in one way or other live on the good‐for‐somethings—vagrants and sots, criminals and those on the way to crime, youths who are burdens on hard‐worked par- ents, men who appropriate the wages of their wives, fellows who share the gains of prostitutes; and then, less visible and less numerous, there is a corresponding class of women.

Is it natural that happiness should be the lot of such? or is it natural that they should bring unhappiness on themselves and those connected with them? Is it not manifest that there must exist in our midst an immense amount of misery which is a normal result of misconduct, and ought not to be dissociated from it? There is a notion, always more or less prevalent and just now vociferously expressed, that all social suffering is removable, and that it is the duty of somebody or other to remove it. Both these beliefs are false. To separate pain from ill‐doing is to fight against the constitution of

c04.indd 71c04.indd 71 11/24/2011 3:04:24 PM11/24/2011 3:04:24 PM

72 The Gilded Age and Progressive Era

things, and will be followed by far more pain. Saving men from the natural penalties of dissolute living, eventually necessitates the infliction of artificial penalties in solitary cells, on tread‐wheels, and by the lash. I suppose a dictum, on which the current creed and the creed of science are at one, may be considered to have as high an authority as can be found. Well, the command “if any would not work neither should he eat,” is simply a Christian enunciation of that universal law of Nature under which life has reached its present height—the law that a creature not energetic enough to maintain itself must die: the sole difference being that the law which in the one case is to be artificially enforced, is, in the other case, a natural necessity. And yet this particular tenet of their religion which science so manifestly justifies, is  the one which Christians seem least inclined to accept. The current assumption is that there should be no suffering, and that society is to blame for that which exists.

3 Henry Demarest Lloyd, “The Lords of Industry,” 1884 4

Henry Demarest Lloyd (1847–1903) was one of the original muckrakers, a group of journalists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who exposed corrupt politicians and monopolistic business practices. In 1881, he wrote an exposé of the railroads and Standard Oil Company that ran in the Atlantic Monthly. In 1885, he left the Tribune and devoted himself to pursuing his interest in public welfare, traveling to various countries around the world and writing about their social welfare policies. His most important book , Wealth against Commonwealth (1894), was a 500‐page critique of monopolies, especially Standard Oil. His faith in democracy was diminished when the book failed to spark a public outcry against monopolistic business practices. His experiences with populist and progressive politics were also disappointing, and he spent the last years of his life supporting socialism, which seemed to him the best hope for opposing monopoly power and obtaining rights for workers .

The following article details the trend toward monopoly in a large number of essential industries in the United States. The excerpt presented here focuses on the coal industry.

Adam Smith said in 1776: “People of the same trade hardly meet together even for merriment and diversion but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” The expansive

4 North American Review 138 (January/June 1884): 535–53.

c04.indd 72c04.indd 72 11/24/2011 3:04:25 PM11/24/2011 3:04:25 PM