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The Reformer Reformed: John H. Reagan and Railroad Regulation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Gerald Nash
Gerald Nash
Affiliation:
Doctoral Candidate in History at University of California, Berkeley
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Abstract

The changing attitude toward railroad regulation of reformer John H. Reagan tells much about the validity of the objections raised by railroadmen of the 1880's to such regulation. In tracing Reagan's career thus, a question of historiography is raised. Can careful utilization of contemporary attitudes toward business situations compensate for the subjectivity of the historian himself?

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , June 1955 , pp. 189 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1955

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References

1 Nevins, Allan and Josephson, Mathew, “Should American History be Rewritten?” Saturday Review of Literature, Vol. 37 (6 Feb. 1954), 7–10Google Scholar; Bornet, Vaughn, “Those Robber Barons,” Western Political Quarterly, VI (June, 1953), 342–6Google Scholar.

2 Business in the Gilded Age (Madison, 1952), p. 59Google Scholar; for an approach to the study of the thought of businessmen themselves see Cochran, Thomas C., “A Plan for the Study of Business Thinking,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 62 (March, 1947), 82–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and his Railroad Leaders, 1845–1890 (Cambridge, 1953Google Scholar).

3 A fuller discussion of Reagan's relation to railroad regulation is found in Nash, Gerald, “A Chapter from an Active Life: John H. Reagan and Railroad Regulation” (Ms. M.A. thesis, Columbia University, 1952)Google Scholar.

4 Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 2336–2337, 2412.

5 Black, Robert, The Railroads of the Confederacy (Chapel Hill, 1952), pp. 52–54Google Scholar, has a good brief description of Reagan's early efforts in this sphere.

6 See, for example, Correspondence between the President of the Virginia Central Railroad and the Postmaster-General in Relation to the Postal Service (Richmond, 1864)Google Scholar, pamphlet in Reagan Papers.

7 Confederate States of America, Annual Report of the Postmaster-General, 1863 (Richmond, 1864), p. 11Google Scholar, in Reagan Papers.

8 This point will be elaborated in a manuscript now in preparation.

9 The clause made it unlawful “to charge … greater compensation … for a shorter than for a longer distance which includes the shorter.” For the most convenient reprint of the Reagan Bill see McPherson, Edward, Handbook of Politics for 1886 (Washington, 1886), pp. 10–12Google Scholar.

10 U.S. Congress, House, Miscellaneous Documents, 47th Cong., 1st Sess., Vol. 13, no. 55 (Washington, 1882), pp. 6, 65, 113–18, 188–90Google Scholar, hereafter cited as Hearings, 1882; see also U.S. Congress, Senate, Report of the Select Committee on Interstate Commerce, 49th Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington, 1886), Vol. II, pp. 72, 170, 581, 741, 831, 1262, 1323Google Scholar, hereafter cited as Hearings, 1885.

11 Cong. Record, 45th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 3276; letter to The Daily World (Nashville, Tenn.), 25 Jan. 1885Google Scholar, clipping in Reagan Papers.

12 For Reagan's political connections with antimonopolists see Nash, Gerald, “Selections from the Reagan Papers: the Butler-Reagan Ticket of 1884,” Journal of Southern History (May, 1955)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Speech of Honorable John H. Reagan made in the House of Representatives on the first day of June, 1880 (Washington, 1880), p. 13Google Scholar; Cong. Record, 47th Cong., 1st Sess., Appendix, p. 135.

14 Speech … Reagan, June 1, 1880, p. 18.

15 Ibid., p. 13; Cong. Record, 47th Cong., 1st Sess., Appendix, p. 135; Hearings, 1882, p. 247.

16 Hearings, 1882, pp. 12, 74, 126.

17 Cong. Record, 47th Cong., 1st Sess., Appendix, p. 136.

18 Speech … Reagan, June 1, 1880, p. 18.

19 Hearings, 1882, p. 248; Speech … Reagan, June 1, 1880, p. 18.

20 Cullom, Shelby M., Fifty Years of Public Service (Chicago, 1911), pp. 322–3Google Scholar; Philadelphia Press, 4 Dec. 1886; New York Times, 10 Dec. 1886; the provision was copied directly into the constitutions of Arkansas, California, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. See U.S. Industrial Commission, Report (Washington, 1900), IV, 929Google Scholar.

21 Crockett [Texas] Courier, 17 Oct. 1892, Reagan Papers.

22 Reagan's original draft in Reagan Papers; adopted plank in Winkler, Ernest (ed.), Platforms of Political Parties in Texas (“Bulletin of the University of Texas,” no. 53 [Austin, 1916]), p. 403Google Scholar.

23 Galveston News, 24 Feb. 1901, clipping in Reagan Papers.

24 U.S. Industrial Commission, op. cit., IV, 346; original typescript of his testimony before the Commission in Library of Interstate Commerce Commission, Washington, D.C.

25 Texas Railroad Commission, Annual Report, 1894 (Austin, 1895), p. ivGoogle Scholar.

26 Interstate Commerce Commission, Annual Report, 1892 (Washington, 1893), p. 236Google Scholar.

37 See above, footnote 10.

28 Proceedings of a National Convention of Railroad Commissioners, 1896 (Washington, 1897), pp. 105–8Google Scholar.

29 Houston Post, 30 Apr. 1892, in Reagan Papers.

30 This contention is advanced in various forms in Destler, C. McArthur, “The Opposition of Businessmen to Social Control in the Gilded Age,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 40 (March, 1953), 646Google Scholar; Dumond, D., A History of the United States (New York, 1942), p. 623Google Scholar; Soule, George, Economic Forces in American Life (New York, 1952), p. 112Google Scholar.

31 See Cochran, Railroad Leaders, p. 197.

32 This conclusion is based on a thorough examination of the testimony of railroadmen before congressional committees in 1879, 1880, 1882, 1884 and 1885. See Blanchard, George R., Argument before the Committee on Commerce of the Senate of the United States in Opposition to the Reagan Bill (New York, 1879), p. 61Google Scholar; Fink, Albert, Argument before the Committee on Commerce of the House of Representatives (New York, 1880), p. 3Google Scholar; Argument of Mr. Franklin B. Gowen before the Committee on Commerce of the House of Representatives (Philadelphia, 1880), p. 22Google Scholar; Hearings, 1882, pp. 1, 53, 138, 145, 162; Hearings, 1885, pp. 84, 169, 208, 232, 580, 599, 620, 739, 825, 903, 1269, for samples.