Industrial Leaders of the 1865-1900 Era: Robber Barons or Industrial Statesmen?
D B Q PAGE 353
Write a coherent essay that integrates your interpretation of Documents A–H and your knowledge of the period to answer the following question:
To what extent is it justified to characterize the industrial leaders of the 1865–1900 era as either “robber barons” or “industrial statesmen”?
DOCUMENT A.
Q: How is the freight and passenger pool working? W.V.: Very satisfactorily. I don’t like that expression “pool,” how- ever, that’s a common construction applied by the people to a combi- nation 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 on 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 but our own. . . .
Interview with William H. Vanderbilt, Chicago Daily News, October 9, 1882
DOCUMENT B.
My laboratory will soon be completed. . . . I will have the best equipped and largest Laboratory extant, and the facilities incompara- bly superior to any other for rapid & cheap development of an invention, & working it up into Commercial shape with models, patterns & special machinery. In fact there is no similar institution in Existence. We do our own castings and forgings. Can build anything from a ladys watch to a Locomotive.
The Machine shop is sufficiently large to employ 50 men & 30 men can be worked in other parts of the
Write a coherent essay that integrates your interpretation of Documents A–H and your knowledge of the period to answer the following question:
To what extent is it justified to characterize the industrial leaders of the 1865–1900 era as either “robber barons” or “industrial statesmen”?
DOCUMENT A.
Q: How is the freight and passenger pool working? W.V.: Very satisfactorily. I don’t like that expression “pool,” how- ever, that’s a common construction applied by the people to a combi- nation 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 on 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 but our own. . . .
Interview with William H. Vanderbilt, Chicago Daily News, October 9, 1882
DOCUMENT B.
My laboratory will soon be completed. . . . I will have the best equipped and largest Laboratory extant, and the facilities incompara- bly superior to any other for rapid & cheap development of an invention, & working it up into Commercial shape with models, patterns & special machinery. In fact there is no similar institution in Existence. We do our own castings and forgings. Can build anything from a ladys watch to a Locomotive.
The Machine shop is sufficiently large to employ 50 men & 30 men can be worked in other parts of the