Documents from Reading the American Past

Chapter 18

Introduction to the Documents

The growth of huge corporations during the Gilded Age concentrated great power in the hands of wealthy industrialists and financiers. Their power to hire and fire employees, to make or break the fortunes of many, and to shape the economic fate of the nation raised the question of how the principles of democracy should apply to corporations. Should the government attempt to regulate the relations between labor and capital? Should lawmakers set rates for public services such as railroads or telegraphs? What should be done about the growing disparity between rich and poor? Did wealthy capitalists have special social obligations? Captains of industry and their supporters answered these questions by declaring that things were as they should be. Critics pointed out that the actual relations between government and industry, employers and workers, and the rich and the poor, were very different from the laissez-faire claims of business leaders.