POLITICS IN A GILDED AGE ★^633officeholding from the hands of political machines. (However, since funds
raised from political appointees had helped to finance the political parties, civil
service reform had the unintended result of increasing politicians’ dependence
on donations from business interests.)
In 1887, in response to public outcries against railroad practices, Congress
established the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to ensure that the
rates railroads charged farmers and merchants to transport their goods were
“reasonable” and did not offer more favorable treatment to some shippers. The
ICC was the first federal agency intended to regulate economic activity, but
since it lacked the power to establish rates on its own— it could only sue com-
panies in court— it had little impact on railroad practices. Three years later,
Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, which banned all combinations
and practices that restrained free trade. The measure posed a significant threat
to corporate efforts to dominate sectors of the economy. But the courts primar-
ily used it as a way to suppress labor unions. Nonetheless, these laws helped to
establish the precedent that the national government could regulate the econ-
omy to promote the public good.
Political Conflict in the States
The nation had to weather the effects of drastic economic change and periodic
economic crises without leadership from Washington. At the state and local
levels, however, the Gilded Age was an era of political ferment and conflict
over the proper uses of governmental authority. In the immediate aftermath
of the Civil War, state governments in the North, like those in the Reconstruc-
tion South, greatly expanded their responsibility for public health, welfare,
and education, and cities invested heavily in public works such as park con-
struction and improved water and gas services. Those who suffered from eco-
nomic change called on the activist state created by the war to redress their
own grievances.
Third parties enjoyed significant if short- lived success in local elec-
tions. The Greenback- Labor Party proposed that the federal government stop
taking “greenback” money out of circulation. This, it argued, would make more
funds available for investment and give the government, not private bankers,
control of the money supply. It also condemned the use of militias and private
police against strikes. In the late 1870s, the party controlled local government
in a number of industrial and mining communities and contributed to the
election of twenty- one members of Congress independent of the two major
parties.
The policies of railroad companies produced a growing chorus of protest,
especially in the West. Farmers and local merchants complained of excessively
Was the Gilded Age political system effective in meeting its goals?