Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1992
Abstract
Few issues more vexed Americans during the Gilded Age than the regulation of railroads. America's first big business, the railroads wielded enormous economic power and by the end of the nineteenth century represented 10 percent of national wealth. 1 Farmers and other local shippers often viewed railroads as an exploitative monopoly and blamed them for excessive and discriminatory charges. They repeatedly clamored for regulation of the freight and passenger rates fixed by railroad companies. Agricultural interests in the Great Plains states were particularly active in seeking regulatory legislation. Railroad investors and managers, on the other hand, opposed regulatory laws and defended their autonomy to determine rates. They feared that governmental control of rates would benefit shippers and farmers at the expense of the railroads by imposing unreasonably low charges. Moreover, they asserted that regulation of rates would likely impair capital investment and thus stifle railroad growth and economic development.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 12:4 (Fall 1992). Copyright © 1992 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.