Customer Reviews

THE ROBBER BARONS

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If you're going to write history, the best thing to do is be objective and balanced. But if you can't do that, the second best thing is to broadcast your bias loud and clear.

By going the second route, this book provides not only a historical account of the robber barons, but a pretty clear picture of the Marxist perspective on them in 1934.

It's interesting at times to watch Josephson struggle for balance. On the one hand, he seems to almost admire the big capitalists when they're creating collectives by crushing the little capitalists. On the other hand, when they start tromping on the workers, they're clearly Very Naughty. And he addresses the rampant religious fervor of most of the barons, but never really figures out how to make it fit the picture other than by suggesting they're just enormously hypocritical.

The story of railroad, steel and banking essentially taking over the country is here, nicely organized so that we can follow relevant threads without getting to caught up in chronology. Josephson sometimes lets his billowing prose and sweeping characterizations overwhelm detail and fact; his style is definitely not for all tastes.

Ultimately it's a double history, not only of the Robber Barons themselves, but of the singular vantage point of the mid-thirties. Yes, Josephson is not the most objective of chroniclers, but his bias is so clearly stated and in evidence that it is easy to filter out, and his point of view becomes an interesting subject of this study in its own right.

I found the Robber Barons an interesting book to read but I thought Matthew Josephson's book the Money Lords was better. It is a well written book as you would expect from Josephon. Robber Barons is a classic and a good general history of the pioneers of industry including Astor, Vanderbilt, Drew, Cooke, Gould, Fisk, Carnegie, Morgan, Rockefeller and Harriman of which I am sure most will find it interesting but it lacks the insight and wisdom of Money Lords. There are numerous interesting stories of all the above metioned men as they made their individual quests for success. Most of the men made a great deal of their fortunes through stocks on Wall Street which some of their stories are outlined here. Interesting enough is that over half made their fortunes in Rail Roads through ownership and stock manipulation. This is a good book giving the reader a general overview of some of the biggest fortunes made during the late 1800's.

This 1934 book provides a history of the late 19th century that is missing from school history books. The author worked for a few years in Wall Street and learned about the "Men Who Rule America". Later he wrote a number of biographies for a magazine. These men were no match for the great capitalists who flourished in the late 19th century (the Gilded Age). He decided to write not just about their lives, manners and morals, but how they got their money. Their great wealth was unaffected by any income tax. These barons of industry were "agents of progress" in transforming an agrarian-mercantile society into a mass production economy. Josephson described their most ruthless actions, their plunders and conspiracies, and their lack of ethics. The system they created led to the Great Depression. Since then academic historians created a revisionist history that claimed those entrepreneurs were saviors of the country and not interested in looting and plundering the economy. This "history" is similar to the "truth factories" in George Orwell's "1984" [which is about Britain and the world of 1948]. Their family dynasties have survived, they established trusts that evaded the tax burdens of other wealthy families. [Other writers have pointed out that they sponsored universities to control teachers and thinking, and provide other benefits.] These dynasties seem permanent. The founders were hated by the American people in their lifetime. The farmers of Kansas first applied the name "Robber Barons" to the railroads that oppressed them.

Jay Gould bought the "New York World" and the Associate Press to control the news to his advantage. Most newspapers then were independently owned, unlike today's corporate media. The Robber Barons used their control of transportation to levy tolls on all shipments. Today's versions are trying to privatize public highways and add new tolls to enrich themselves and impoverish the rest of us. Chapter 12 tells about the formations of pools and trusts. The use of legal shields, violence and sabotage set a precedent for latter-day organized crime. Bankers were enriched in 1873 when the Federal Government stopped silver currency. Debts contracted with cheap greenbacks had to be repaid with expensive gold (p.290). The "Railway Mania" of the Civil War era led to excessive railroad lines that lost money (p.292). Hundreds of millions of dollars were lost to bankruptcy and fraud. [Was this comparable to the High-Tech stock swindles of the late 1990s?] The Pennsylvania Railroad was the most powerful in business (p.295). Unregulated competition led to enormous waste and an impoverished society (p.297). The Morgan bank worked out a deal which evaded the law (p.299). [The decision of the US Supreme Court suggests they were touched like other politicians (p.306).]

"Nature's Noblemen" were at their height of power and reputation in the 1880s. They were in control of government (police, army, navy, courts), the schools, the press, the church, and fashionable society (as ever a "kept class" attached to the ruling class). They were true believers in the God that rewarded them with riches and powers (pp.316-317). "God gave me my money" (p.318). [Divine right?] They donated millions to churches because it was good business (pp.320-321) They money was orthodox! Rockefeller's Chicago University argued to justify the trusts (p.324). They appointed and controlled Federal judges. The lives of the colossally rich showed their emptiness and vulgarity (p.337). Chapter 15 explains how laws were passed (pp.356-358). Their absolute powers were shown by their ruthless attacks on labor unions (p.361). The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed against the industrialists but was used against unions (p.367)!

Chapter 16 explains how mismanagement led to the Panic of 1893, the worst depression of the 19th century. [Economic oppression and a lack of money cause depressions.] Depressions were used to eliminate small competitors (p.379). Price fixing swindled tax-payers (pp.385-386). "Pump and dump" schemes made millions (pp.387-388). Carnegie supplied low-quality armor for Navy ships (p.391). Chapter 17 tells how the House of Morgan used people's monies to control the people (p.409). Morgan saved railroads in order to destroy them (p.413). Morgan "saved the country" (p.414)! Chapter 18 tells how the US Steel Trust was created. $1,321 millions in stocks and bonds were sold to buy $681 millions of tangible assets (p.429)! Things began to change in 1901 with Teddy Roosevelt (p.445). Trusts exploited the public (p.447). Would plutocracy triumph over the people (p.448)? They continued to profit from plundering the people (p.451) They learned to use "public relations counselors" to present themselves to the public (p.452).
The `Bibliography' lists the books used for research. There is no mention of the attacks on the militia in those days. [Have we learned anything since then?]

I have no doubt that Matthew Josephson wrote this book to denounce "unrestrained capitalism." Yet, when one reads this book critically, he'll find that most of the injustices of these times were caused, not by "unrestrained capitalism," but by the government. The Central Pacific, Northern Pacific, and Union Pacific Railroad companies, for example, would not have been able to "exploit the masses" in the first place had they not been heavily subsidized by the very government which was later called in to "bust" their trusts.

I believe one of the best evaluations of this book was offered by R. W. Grant, who wrote, "In spite of his ill-concealed hostility to capitalism, Josephson continues to provide example after example of just where the real trouble lay: not with capitalism, but with government."

Jim Powell is also right on target when he observes, "[B]y author Matthew Josephson's own account, crooks like Jay Gould, Jim Fisk, and Daniel Drew thrived on government privileges and subsidies. By contrast, Josephson acknowledged that entrepreneurs such as Cornelius Vanderbilt provided valuable services and cut prices."

It should also be noted that, unlike the typical Big Government "liberal," Josephson at least *tries* to be fair (he doesn't quite succeed, but I applaud the effort). I was also surprised that it was Josephson, of all people, who explained how William H. Vanderbilt's famous quote--"The public be damned!"--was taken out of context by the leftists. Josephson also admits that the vulgar descriptions of unsanitary meat in Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" was highly exaggerated and inaccurate. These are points that my "moderate" high school teachers would rather not acknowledge.

Yes, Josephson probably did believe that the government was needed to "restrain capitalism." But, to the perceptive reader, he shows that the government had ALREADY restrained capitalism when it chose to subsidize the favored industries, which it should not have done in the first place.

By the way, James Jerome Hill built the Great Northern Railroad without any federal aid,and it was THIS railroad which ended up the most prosperous and honest.

Matthew Josephson directly links the onset of the Civil War to the Industrial Revolution. Before Lincoln had served even a single day in office, the south was circling the wagons. America's transformation from the slave system to mass-production was a painful one. Determining the geopolitical model for the new territories was the central issue. Indeed, with Lincoln the south's national influence, already rapidly weakening, becomes all the clearer. Further, Lincoln's expertise as a lawyer was primarily litigating the competing interests of steamboats and railroads. The first railroad that bridged the Mississippi was in 1856. Just weeks later a steamboat crashes into it and the owner files suit. Abraham Lincoln represented the railroad company.

For years a transcontinental railroad was sought, but could only proceed with public funds upon congressional approval. Not favoring the chosen route, southern representatives repeatedly blocked the measure. After secession, the bill passed and mass exploitation to begin. The political rhetoric was stopping the expansion of slavery, a moral facade and states rights, a constitutional pretense. Both hollow and neither realized. Conversely, the underlying interests ultimately served were those of the robber barons. Coincidence perhaps? For your consideration, Matthew Josephson:

"When the abyss of the Civil War suddenly yawned before men's eyes it but registered a "lag" which had existed already during the whole of the preceding generation. Where England had officially recognized its economic transition peacefully by the repeal of the Corn Laws, America, through blood and iron, consecrated its own industrial revolution by the end of what had been comparatively free trade." [pg 4]

"The axis of trade had shifted away from the Mississippi by 1860, when 30,000 miles of railroad existed. ... He [the settler] found prosperity in free labor rather than in the routine effort of slaves. His spirit called for national unity, for freely circulating capital, and above all for a Pacific Railroad. The new political party clamored against the blockade of its future prosperity held by the south ... Its leader, a lawyer for western railroads, included a Pacific Railroad bill and a protective tariff for native industries in his platform. Such overwhelming economic needs, confronted with the alarmed passionate resistance of the agrarian, slave-owning, static south, must burst the dam at last in the inevitable social cataclysm of the Civil War." [pg 30-31]

"The young men who were to form the new nobility of industry and banking ... would take their posts in the economic revolution which rose to a climax in the war; and at the end of the war would see them masters of money, capitalists equipped to increase their capital. In the hour of danger and confusion it was as if they alone were prepared. It was as if the second American Revolution were fought for them." [pg 32]

"The rout of the first Union army spread gloom over the north ... The very reverses of the union armies, creating the need for government funds, for vast quantities of war material, clothing, uniform, shoes, munitions, transport, and for a total reorganization of the national economy, soon changed the humor of the civilians. The very collapse of the government credit, the menace of defeat, bringing debasement of the currency, was a good, since there soon developed a cycle of inflation with its pleasant picture of soaring prices for goods of all kinds ... Behind the army lines there were lucrative tasks to be done in short order." [pg 51]

"Under Lincoln, after the Homestead Act, began the distribution of the public domain, which the federal government owned, in favor of its citizenry of free farmers and artisans ... In a hurried partition, for nominal sums or by cession, this benevolent government handed over to its friends or to astute first comers, the most daring undertakers, all those treasures of coal and oil, of copper and gold and iron, the land grants, the terminal sites, the perpetual rights of way--an act of largesse which is still one of the wonders of the world."

[Footnote]: "For had not the Republican convention at Chicago in 1860, placed the measure for a Pacific Railroad Bill on its platform under the urgings of young men like Leland Stanford who came hurrying from California to the banner of Lincoln, though without the slightest interest in the freedom of slaves?"

"To the new railroad enterprises in addition, great money subsidies totaling many hundreds of millions were given. The Tariff Act of 1864 was in itself a sheltering wall of subsidies; and to add further the new heavy industries and manufactures, an Immigration Act allowing contract labor to be imported freely was quickly enacted; a national banking system perfected. And finally, to preserve the new alignment of interests, the cabalistic "due process clause" was inserted into the Fourteenth Amendment, by which the ostensible defense of Negroes' rights, as Beards have pointed out, was made the eternal bulwark of great property rights." [pg 52] "Was not Cooke a figure of the war machine behind the lines?" [Footnote] "Military historians have traced clearly the influence of tremendous political-financial pressure in Grant's disgraceful action at Cold Harbor..." [pg 58]

Charges of corruption relating to war contracts forced Simon Cameron, Lincoln's first Secretary of War, to resign. From wikipedia: "Following the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause prompted substantive due process interpretations to be urged on the Supreme Court as a limitation on state legislation. ... Because many of the first applications protected the rights of corporations and employers to be free of governmental regulation, it has been charged that substantive due process developed as a consequence of the Court's desire to accommodate 19th-century railroads and trusts."

Another issue Josephson would have the reader indulge is whether any man should have a stranglehold over the socio-economic interests of the masses. Then with the unveiling of the persona of many of the robber barons, it's a very frightening thought indeed.

This book was first written in 1934 and remains the definite description of the Robber Barons. The author describes the Barons in the context of the political, social, and industrial trends of the time. It describes how they were shaped by the industries they were in, and by the competitive forces set in motion by each other. It is very well written, well researched, and the stories are simply fascinating.

This book has a certain bias against the Barons and the laissez-faire system that created them, but it is not overwhelming. Keep in mind that it was written in the depths of the Great Depression, when many people questioned their faith in the free market system. While the author describes their many great accomplishments, he also spends plenty of time on their weaknesses and excesses, especially in the latter chapters. But remember, even the most admirable Barons also bribed politicians, abused their workers, and cheated ordinary investors by manipulating their own stock. Many of their actions would be illegal today.

This book contains a lot of detail (though if you are like me, you will soon be wanting more). It is not a light book for a lazy Sunday afternoon. But if you are really interested, this is the place to start.

Judging by the attack "reviews" below there must be some right-wing campaign in progress to discredit Josephson. It's probably being organized by one of those propaganda machines they call "conservative think tanks".

That nonsense aside, the book itself is a fabulous read as a tome on both history and grand business strategy for building a trust. Indeed I found it difficult to put down at night in order to go to sleep. Josephson brings the Robber Barons alive.

For anyone interested in how men can amass such great fortunes the book provides plenty of clues by revealing the strategies used by the Robber Barons.

One final point, a few of the attack reviews here are critical of Josephson for siding with labor in their disputes with the Robber Barons. They conveniently overlook the fact that most workers were treated as slaves back then working 12 hour days 6 times per week. If they dared complain about dangerous work conditions, the Andrew Carnegie types would simply send in battalions of Pinkerton goons to bust heads open and maybe even murder a few workers for good measure.

There is no other history of the Robber Barons that comes close to this book.

This chronicles the post civil war to early 1900s greed grab of some of the greatest scoundrels in American history. Vanderbilt, Astor, Rockefeller, Carnegie, J.P Morgan, Harriman, and the slithery Jay Gould. Immoral Capitalist pig scumbags who made money no matter what the cost (to others) through steel, oil, banking, coal and especially through the railroads. At that time if you controlled the railroads you 100% controlled all shipping and movement of goods so they got their cut even if it wasn't an industry that they had a controlling interest in. Some of these peoples descendents are currently at the top of the food chain of the criminal globalist network that currently controls the world.

There was some but not enough in this about how they screwed over the working man and consumer but it was laugh out loud funny to see how they would backstab each other. In some cases they took great delight in completely destroying the very people who gave them their first break so they could get their feet in the door in the world of big business. It was funny to see how they would slander anybody who opposed them with the communist (never mind that these uber-capitalists had a huge hand in funding various communist revolutions themselves) slur, which worked well for these types well into the 1970s. Now the same types throw around terms like racist and terrorist in the same way at anybody that opposes them. Also it was not surprising to see how these same types then, as they do now, use immigration and the Christian church to their advantage. One thing I would liked to have seen in this book which wasn't even touched on is the belief many have that most of the Robber Barons were creations of and lackeys for banking houses based in Britain and Europe but overall this was an excellent book.

The Robber Barons by Matthew Josephson was written in 1934 - at the heart of the Great Depression when America was struggling financially. Matthew Josephson's view in 1934 of the great business titans who dominated between 1861 and 1901 is therefore biased, though he could have had this opinion of them even if the U.S. had been prosperous in the 1930s. Josephson was a socialist, so this definitely contributed to his feelings about the great titans of business. He has mostly a negative view of such industrialists and capitalists as Rockefeller, Morgan, Gould, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Astor, and many others. That's totally fine. He obviously felt these men were super rich, greedy "robber barons." The first person to really uncover the ruthless business practices of any titan of industry was Henry Demarest Lloyd in 1881, when he wrote about John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company in "The Story Of A Great Monopoly" in The Atlantic Monthly magazine. Investigative journalist or "muckraker" Ida Tarbell also had ill feelings about John D. Rockefeller during the progressive era, when she wrote a series of articles for McClure's Magazine that eventually became the book The History Of The Standard Oil Company (1904). This was during Teddy Roosevelt's administration (1901 - 1909) that the trusts were starting to be broken up during the so-called progressive era. One can't blame Tarbell for her ill feelings toward John D. Rockefeller at that time.

A few years after Josephson's book, which was written during the heart of the Depression, Allan Nevins wrote a book called John D. Rockefeller: The Heroic Age Of American Enterprise (1940). This book was written on the eve of America's involvement in World War II. This book painted John D. Rockefeller as a great American, an "industrial statesmen" and a philanthropist who helped provide America with an important product needed to help build and expand the country in the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century. His product, petroleum, helped fuel the machines that helped America win World War II, such as airplanes, tanks, etc. It's interesting how the great business titans have been viewed by people throughout history. What is currently happening in peoples' lives, such as historic events, can greatly mold a person's view of the business titans. Again, when it comes to Josephson, he wrote his book in 1934 during the Great Depression, when America was struggling and the great business titans were viewed as greedy men.

So when it comes to this book, The Robber Barons, you can expect a negatively biased view of the great titans of the nineteenth century. Josephson basically takes no prisoners. His view is that of greedy, filthy rich, ruthless businessmen with shady and ruthless business practices to achieve great wealth and dominate their respective industries. Keep in mind, the period of time this book covers (1861 - 1901) was a period of time when there were no anti-trust laws in the U.S. It was a period of laissez-faire (limited government). It was a period of monopolies with no laws restricting them. It was the Age of Enterprise. It was the Gilded Age, a period when the vast majority of wealth in the U.S. was in the hands of a few people. I think you'll enjoy this book.

Not an easy book to get through, it is absolutely essential to an understanding of the rise of big business - and big businessmen - in America. Just as relevant today as when written in 1934.