Reformers: George, Bellamy, Lloyd 473Although in isolated cases monopolists did raise
prices unreasonably, generally they did not. On the
contrary, prices tended to fall until by the 1890s a ver-
itable “consumer’s millennium” had arrived. Far more
important in causing resentment was the fear that the
monopolists were destroying economic opportunity
and threatening democratic institutions. It was not the
wealth of tycoons like Carnegie and Rockefeller and
Morgan so much as their influence that worried peo-
ple. In the face of the growing disparity between rich
and poor, could republican institutions survive? “The
belief is common,” wrote Charles Francis Adams’s
brother Henry as early as 1870, “that the day is at
hand when corporations... will ultimately succeed in
directing government itself.”
As criticism mounted, business leaders rose to
their own defense. Rockefeller described in graphic
terms the chaotic conditions that plagued the oil
industry before the rise of Standard Oil: “It seemed
absolutely necessary to extend the market for oil...
and also greatly improve the process of refining so that
oil could be made and sold cheaply, yet with a profit.
We proceeded to buy the largest and best refining
concerns and centralized the administration of them
with a view to securing greater economy and effi-
ciency.” Carnegie, in an essay published in 1889,
insisted that the concentration of wealth was necessary
if humanity was to progress, softening this “Gospel of
Wealth” by insisting that the rich must use their
money “in the manner which... is best calculated to
produce the most beneficial results for the commu-
nity.” The rich man was merely a trustee for his
“poorer brethren,” Carnegie said, “bringing to their
service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to
administer.” Lesser tycoons echoed these arguments.
The voices of the critics were louder if not necessar-
ily more influential. Many clergymen denounced
unrestrained competition, which they considered
un-Christian. The new class of professional economists
(the American Economic Association was founded in
1885) tended to repudiate laissez-faire. State aid,
Richard T. Ely of Johns Hopkins University wrote, “is
an indispensable condition of human progress.”
Carnegie,Wealthat
http://www.myhistorylab.com
Reformers: George, Bellamy, Lloyd
The popularity of a number of radical theorists
reflects public feeling in the period. In 1879 Henry
George, a California journalist, publishedProgress
and Poverty,a forthright attack on the uneven distri-
bution of wealth in the United States. George
argued that labor was the true and only source of
ReadtheDocumentcapital. Observing the speculative fever of the West,
which enabled landowners to reap profits merely by
holding property while population increased, George
proposed a property tax that would confiscate this
“unearned increment.” The value of land depended
on society and should belong to society; allowing
individuals to keep this wealth was the major cause
of the growing disparity between rich and poor,
George believed.
George’s “single tax,” as others called it, would
bring in so much money that no other taxes would be
necessary, and the government would have plenty of
funds to establish new schools, museums, theaters,
and other badly needed social and cultural services.
While the single tax on property was never adopted,
George’s ideas attracted enthusiastic attention. Single
tax clubs sprang up throughout the nation, and
Progress and Povertybecame a best-seller.
Even more spectacular was the reception afforded
Looking Backward, 2000–1887,a utopian novel writtenEdward Bellamy, author of the utopian novel Looking Backward(1888).
Bellamy’s socialism worried many. The Household Encyclopedia(1892)
included this photograph of Bellamy in a section on phrenology, the
“science” of ascertaining a person’s character and intellectual traits
from the shape of his or her cranium. Referring to Bellamy’s, it
concluded, “Large perceptive faculties; defective reasoning powers.”