Some Social Attitudes of Railroad Administrators at the End of the Nineteenth Century

The records of the Industrial Commission of 1898 and 1899 present an unusual cross section of the opinions of the men who were building, supplying, and managing America. Manufacturers, shippers, trade-association officers, government representatives, union leaders, labor and corporation lawyers, workers, and executives all gave extensive testimony before sections of the Commission. Often these men read into the record long statements of their general philosophy and specific beliefs, views which, considering their source, seem at least as important as the widely read utterances of novelists, preachers, professors, and journalists. Yet these opinions of men of action now lie buried in the forbidding format of government documents. Using such material the scholar may write a new history of American thought and development based on the evidence of the men who were doing the job rather than on that of the more literary bystanders. This brief article will discuss some of the social and business attitudes of railroad administration as revealed by the executives' own testimony before the Industrial Commission.