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Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900

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"This book tells the saddest story: How, having redeemed democracy in the Civil War, America betrayed it in the Gilded Age." That is that start of _Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865 - 1900_ (Knopf) by Jack Beatty. But Beatty, an author of previous histories of that age, isn't just sad. He is angry. It may be futile for a historian to be angry over the unchangeable actions of corporations, government, and citizens so long ago, but a reader cannot help but pick up on it and share the indignation. Beatty has packed one disappointment and betrayal after another into a big book thick with human folly and greed. He cannot help making comparisons with current times, although the comparisons are not pointed or emphasized. He does such things as quote President Hayes's diary about "the rottenness of the present system", "the excessive wealth in the hands of the few", or "This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government by the corporations, of the corporations, and for the corporations." Beatty's case for this being true of the time about which he writes is overwhelming, and that can only increase suspicion that such forces are at work in our own time.

The great innovative industry of the time was railroading. The government made it easy for railroads by giving over 150 million acres in land grants, which the companies not only used but developed and sold. The corporate bosses and politicians enriched themselves, and kept themselves in power to continue to do so. The benefits handed out by government were not all directly to the railroads. There were protective tariffs for manufacturers, a system that grew out of the civil war to procure emergency funds but then prevailed for decades because it benefited the companies. The tariffs did help transform the nation into a leading industrial power, but not only were the benefits not passed onto the workers, the consumer paid higher prices on common articles, a type of tax that was "a very sly one" according to Woodrow Wilson. Beatty's greatest bitterness is against the astonishing reapplication of the 14th Amendment, which had been enacted to protect the rights of millions of former slaves, but became an assurance of continued protection of corporations. There was some redemption in Populism. In this dark book there are few heroes, but the dirt farmers who changed the Farmer's Alliance into a third party refused to play the money game of the main parties. Southern Populists even tried including the poor black farmers, and maybe even risked their lives in preventing lynchings. Workers did strike against railroads when they knew they would be blacklisted from the industry, and did so in solidarity with fellow workers.

But _Age of Betrayal_ is bleak and massive and well referenced. When Beatty does call upon comparisons to our time, it is pointed and accurate. He quotes Mark Hanna, "William McKinley's Karl Rove", who said "All questions in a democracy are questions of money." We are even measuring candidates now by how much money they can raise in their campaigns. Inequalities between the richest and the poorest of our nation were severe then, improved in beginning of the last century, but are severe again now. Lobbyists have seemingly bottomless pockets, then as now. The rich of that time arranged to keep taxes on the rich down, as happens now. We got through the Gilded Age, and its problems are not our own, but Beatty forces us to consider whether we have entered a Gilded Age Two.

_Age of Betrayal_, I have to say, was a thoroughly enjoyable and engrossing read. Mr. Beatty, who demonstrates his probity, erudition and understanding time and again on NPR's _On Point_, easily imports these virtues into writing. His is politically inflected historiography in the best sense, comparing favorably to marxian British historians of previous generations like E. P. Thompson and Gareth Stedman Jones. For the author, what is past is incontrovertibly prelude, and his treatment of the Gilded Age offers the perceptive reader as many insights into his own historical moment as of historical ones.

To his credit Mr. Beatty wears his learning and convictions lightly; the polemic is always subtle, never heavy-handed, and is seamlessly integrated into the prose; the gusto with which he tackles his subject proves infectious. Some chapters, such as those treating the rise and spectacular collapse of the Populists, and the labor unrest at the Carnegie steelworks, have a tragic sweep to them that will leave only the most jaded eye unmoist. As one who studies late-nineteenth century British literature, I really have to credit the author with deepening my understanding of events on this side of the Atlantic during the same period.

I do, however, have two quibbles with the text. First, the author's prose style, while generally graceful, does show a proclivity toward terseness, as well as Chicago-Manual economy of punctuation, which sometimes make even more formidable the dense thickets of data the author frequently drops his reader into. Second, while in the main Mr. Beatty confines himself to the period stated in the book's subtitle, 1865-1900, he does at times look forward to FDR's New Deal, and offers as a coda some words of Woodrow Wilson's in 1913. What the author fails to discuss in his small leap forward into 1913 is another significant event of that year, the creation of the Federal Reserve, a puzzling omission given that Lincoln's greenback paper currency and the free-silver of the Populists occupy such important places in his narrative.

Puzzling because the Fed did exactly what Lincoln did, and what the Populists proposed: replace metal-back currency with fiat. The only twist -- and a critical one, keeping with the theme of betrayal -- is that the power of fiat was removed from government and placed in the hands of private bankers through legislation drafted by representatives of the reviled caesariat of robber-barons. This, I think, is perhaps the greatest single greatest betrayal, ensuring as it does that the everyday wage-worker will lose around three percent per annum the value of his labors' fruits -- and it is one the author never mentions. I'd be interested to hear how the author would defend the creation of the Fed as an innovation on what the free-silver folk, whom Beatty, following Milton Friedman, claims would have triggered inflation of low-double digits. I am therefore led to ask: Is the steady, inexorable march of three-percent inflation preferable to that which the free-silverers would have engendered? Is it simply the rate of the progression that makes the former palatable? To me, this is like saying the prisoner condemned death by _lin chi_ died before the thousandth cut, and thus did not die by _lin chi_.

These are of course ancillary considerations, and they do not prevent me from recommending _Age of Betrayal_ as an instructive, entertaining read. I also recommend Louis Menand's magnificent _The Metaphysical Club_ for discussion of another dimension of the same era.

This probably rates higher than 3 stars if you are an economic historian. It is a detailed dislogue of the years between 1865 and 1900. It is not an easy read, but for the student of the era it is about as complete a recitation as you would ever hope to find and should prove useful. For the average reader however it is not an easy read, is not told in a narrative manner and three stars may be too many. It may tell you more than you ever wanted to know.

Jack Beatty's incisive work on `The Gilded Age' does not purport to be a so-called `objective history' (if such a work exists). Indeed, in the title itself, "Age of Betrayal," Beatty implies the suborning of American democracy by the plutocratic oligarchy of the robber barons who emerged in the late nineteenth century.

And rob they did. Beatty shows the vast creation of wealth in the period from the end of the Civil War: production of iron, steel, oil, and manufactured goods increased enormously. But most of the wealth was directed into the hands of the plutocrats who thrived with the development of the railroads - the arteries of developing capitalism.

This amassing of untold and unseemly wealth, as Beatty explains in detail, was aided and abetted by the collapse of political democracy, even in the limited form projected by the founding fathers. Corruption became the coin of politics: the pockets of senators and congressmen were stuffed with bribes. Beatty quotes President Cleveland who vetoed a modest $10,000 appropriation for seeds to help Texas farmers recover from drought: "I do not believe that the power and duty of the Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering....though the people support the Government, the Government should not support the people."

Beatty shows accurately that the plunder over the Gilded Age decades was encouraged not only by the executive and legislative branches, but also by the Supreme Court. By invoking the 14th Amendment, the court gave the corporations the status of persons: the court ruled in favor of Property at all times. All manner of legal sophistry was invented: a statute outlawing tenement sweat-shop labor was struck down on the grounds that it violated the laborers' right to contract for the terms of their own labor!!

Of course, as Beatty argues powerfully, while the political and legalistic chicanery enabled the plutocrats to line their pockets, there were losers in the sordid `game': blacks, small farmers, and workers.

Beatty devotes a chapter to show how the North abandoned Reconstruction and the black man to a century of terror, murder, and suppression. The horrendous Colfax massacre (1873) continued a wave of repression that barely lifted with Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and whose legacy still pervades America today.

All opposed to the raw `tooth and claw' development of capitalism were swept aside. Farmers were (legally) robbed and ruined; workers were demonized as `communists.' Federal troops, state militia, and Pinkerton men were loosed upon them in the service of capitalist overlords forcing Labor out of the political arena forever.

All in all, Beatty shows the Gilded Age was gilded for but a few. Some did achieve the false American dream of rags-to-riches, but for most, the American reality of impoverishment, disenfranchisement, and alienation obtained.

In the introduction to his powerful book, Beatty hints at a comparison between the Gilded Age and events unfolding in our day when, for every dollar earned by the bottom 90%, the top 0.01% earns $18,000. Hopefully, Beatty's next work will be about the New Gilded Age.

This is a superb book, with the kind of historical information from which American history should be taught at the college level. Although this book takes some work to understand, it is worth the effort for every citizen who would like to understand America. And the Author makes it possible to understand - the book's greatest virtue.

The research is meticulous and the Author's writing skills and analyses make it possible to see the real economic development of the United States. We get an understanding of the interplay between uncontrolled greed and corrupt government through which our railroads were built and other industries devloped. The endless advantages conferred upon private corporations, how investors were frequently swindled, how millions of acres of land were given away, the amazing scope of the fraud perpetrated, all in the name of the economic development of our nation. The growing nation needed railroads, of course, and unparalled economic growth was inevitable in a country as blessed as ours was with natural resources, technological advancement and unlimited territory. But this book raises the question of who this country is for. Lincoln's idea of government FOR the people was lost in an orgy of corporate fraud and favoritism that is still hard to believe.
The best thing I got out of this book is a perspective on what has been going on in our economy in the past decade. Banking and business is so in control of our government that now government just gives hundreds of billions away when modern versions of fraud threaten to virtually destroy the economy. A trillion dollars has been spent to bail out the banks and businesses that have failed us as a nation. The perspective to which I refer is that these actions are merely the modern extenion of fraud and favoritism made possible by business control of government. We spent a TRILLION DOLLARS to enable business to provides war services ancillary to combat in Iraq; and, if we consider Blackwater and other security services, even combat was contracted. How did we win WWII without this system? The Bush administration gave another trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy. Of course, we cannot afford universal health care; we encourage investment by U. S. companies in other countries; the working classes are so hard hit by declining income and now by rescession that local tax revenues no longer adequately support public services; and we vote our fears and prejudices, if we vote at all.

It seems that every time corrupt business interests bring the economy to its knees, the "people" are there to restore vitality to America. Can we do it again? I wonder.

It's been a long time since such an excellent social history of the US hit the shelves. Without falling into the revisionist cliches of the 60s, Beatty surgically deconstructs the founding mythology of corporate America. A house of cards, built on sand - there should be no wonder at its cyclical collapse, from 1860 to last year.

What is depressing about this detailed and captivating story (and those who find it "too hard to read" need to know there's more to life than Grisham bestsellers) is precisely its twice-told character. We've been here before, and due to that special American-Orwellian memory-hole, it's conveniently buried - until the next crisis again necessitates a look back to the present.

A cogent remark in the first chapter is a disgruntled populist's remark that mainstream political parties are "shams," diverting voters' attention onto bogus issues while the people who matter are represented behind the scenes. (Freshly-waved "bloody shirts" grab em every time, from Papists to rapist race-mixers, Commies to Al-Qaeda.) The Grand Republic of the US & A was put on corporate retainer a long time ago; clients change, partners come and go in the firm, but business remains as usual.

An additional personal irony is that I bought this title at Barnes & Noble, and found when I got it home I'd bought a used book put out on the shelf and sold at new price. Only as I read through it did I notice the dirty page ends, marks and streaks in the text, the scrappy bookmark left behind. When I contacted the store, it offered to order a new copy in exchange - anything but give up even part of the money! There's the history of corporate America and this book in 100 words. ;D

I was really interested in this book and have enjoyed listening to Mr. Beatty on NPR radio as a commentator. But I found his book to be a hard read, even hard to skim. It drifts away from the big picture and wanders endlessly in microscopic details that overwhelmed me. He's seemed more enamored with tricky sentence structure - I some times had to read a sentence several times to sort out all of the heavily comma'd parenthetical expressions. The endless references were useless. In today's age of electronics and hyperlinks a book like this would be much better if it wasn't on paper.

Other reviewers are spot on. This book is very uneven. For a work that covers a fascinating time period and a fascinating subject, it could have been stronger and better written throughout.

First, let me say that I read only the first half of this book. I was very interested in the topic and the author has done very in-depth research to support the book. Having said that, I quit half-way through the book when I finally got tired of trying to decipher his train of thought. Virtually every sentence is a convolution of clauses and ideas that wind on endlessly so that I finally lost the gist of what he was trying to say. The author often reaches for an abstruse term when a simple word will do. I must have looked up fifty words in the first 100 pages. I also agree with another reviewer that Beatty gets lost in the details and loses continuity on the larger themes.

I think the message that Beatty is trying to deliver is very relevant in today's world of economic greed gone awry. I just wish his writing had been more approachable.

Although the book at times seems to be in need of a different editor, this is probably the most profound and intellectually challenging history book I've ever read. While castigating corporations for all of the obvious reasons, he recognizes the necessary role corporate cruelty played in creating the 20th century's preeminent superpower. Possibly the best book I've ever read.