by LT Thrower, Sanderson High School
"I sympathize with the poor, but the number of poor who are to be sympathized with is small. To sympathize with a man whom God has punished for his sins...is to do no wrong...let us remember there is not a poor person in the United States who was not made poor by his own shortcomings..." - Russell Conwell, founder of Temple University
Introduction
During the "Gilded Age" of the late 19th century, a few businessmen became extremely wealthy through the manipulation of the economic system, which was just starting to shape in Industrial America. Many called these men "robber barons", but others called them "Captains of Industry" and based their success on the idea of Social Darwinism. To understand them, is to understand the makings of American economics as we know it today.
"It is the unvarying law that the wealth of the community will be in the hands of the few...the great majority of men are unwilling to endure that long self-denial and saving which makes accumulations possible...and hence it has always been, the wealth of the nation is in the hands of a few, while the many subsist upon the proceeds of their daily toil." - Supreme Court Justice David Brewer, 1893
John D. Rockefeller (oil tycoon), Andrew Carnegie (steel tycoon), J.P. Morgan (banking genius), and Cornelius Vanderbilt (railroad magnate) are separately all on trial of crimes associated with being a "robber baron". YOU have been charged with drafting a legal brief to the U.S. courts to convince them to convict or set free one of these men on the basis that you believe his actions are those of a "robber baron" or "captain of industry".
There will be TWO parts to this assignment, both of which you can find by clicking on TASK on the left.
