“The Robber Barons” by Wasserman Essay

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The article of Wasserman titled The Robber Barons is highly insightful from the point of view of the growth of the US nation. Starting the analysis from the roots of the Civil War, Wasserman proves that the military actions were not only grief but a source of profit and wealth for those who were to become the ruling barons of the future United States. He states that the beginning of US history is based on theft and crime and not on the courage and openness of pioneers.

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“For the millions who fought or who watched the two war machines wreck their farms, towns, and lives, the Civil War meant unimaginable horror, four years of unmitigated slaughter and devastation. Five hundred thousand people died, and the romantic spirit of the thirties and forties was consumed into a mangled, bloody mess” (Wasserman 2).

Wasserman emphasizes the role of Jay Cooke, J.P. Morgan, Vanderbilt, and Rockefeller in the establishment of the US industrial sector, oil refining, and railroad construction. However, he does not consider it a contribution but sees a simple theft in the process of the US development $86 million were stolen by the barons during the construction), they were engaged in armed wars for power and influence, sacrificing the human lives and arranging crises that helped them succeed and multiply their money. On the example of the 1873 crash organized by Cooke, the most powerful banker of the US at that moment, Wasserman showed how the barons made their success out of the people’s grief and struggle for existence (Wasserman 7).

In 20 years of turbulent political and economic changes, the power was concentrated in the hands of three main barons – Morgan, Rockefeller, and Carnegie. Each of them was influential in his field, and the war between them was sharpened or marked by temporary truces, depending on the situation. On agreeing with Carnegie Morgan finally became the winner in the triple contest, offering the US Steel Corporation in 1901 into public consumption and marking the new industrial era (Wasserman 7). However, trusts and monopolies continued to produce negative impact on the development of the US, people suffered at the hands of the inhuman industrial machine, politics were bought and the whole country seemed to be an entire corporation: “American industry was paid for in the broken backs and dead eyes of men, women, and children who were valued only as fuel” (Wasserman 11).

Only with the introduction of anti-trust and commerce legislation at the end of the 19th century, the situation became more or less controlled publicly and the country went on the path of democracy and progress. Nonetheless, one can hardly object to the fact that the “flexible tyranny” of the Four Hundred that existed more than a century ago still has its power in the USA. Due to the heavy impact of commerce and commercialization of the governmental policies wealth does matter, as it used to at the dawn of the country’s creation. The way that the US passed from the ungoverned colony to the mature, independent state surely cannot be flat and easy – as it comes from the historical resources, the South with medieval slavery and conservatism prevented the country from the Westward development and progress on the national and international level.

The thieves who took the money from the national budget and created their powerful empires on the funds stolen from taxes also became a great challenge for the country’s welfare due to their conflict that sometimes affected both the policies and the grand projects like a railroad or the oil refining industry. Nonetheless, it is hard to argue the fact that only through their centralized action, though accompanied by thefts and armed resistance, the robber barons still managed to promote the progress of the US that would hardly be achieved only through the governmental effort. The ruling, the wealthy class has much political power in every country of the world, so the only drawback of such state of affairs was and is the exclusion of ordinary citizens from the policy adoption, lack of public control that is targeted in all modern democracies.

Works Cited

Wasserman, Harvey. “The Robber Barons”. History of the United States, Ed. Harvey Wasserman. Harper & Row, 1972. 1-12.

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