Challenge of the Gilded Age: The Myth of Laissez-Faire Economics in American History, Part II

The trend would continue through the 1930s. State and local governments would join forces with the federal government to use troops in breaking the Pullman Boycott and Strike of 1894, in quelling the Colorado Coal Strike in 1913 and 1914, to put down the Great Steel Strike of 1919. National guardsmen and local police were used to put down strikes, allowing for the safe importation of strikebreakers, in Homestead, Pennsylvania in 1892; in the Pennsylvania and West Virginian anthracite coal fields in the late 1800s and early 1900s; in the textile mill town of Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912; during the general strike in Seattle in 1919; in the 1934 Longshoremen Strike on the California coast. It was maintained that reestablishing order, enforcing the law was the primary function of the troops employed in these events. But history shows time and again that it was often the use of such forces that actually provoked hostilities and led to the breakdown of order. The function of the use of force was clear: To maintain the economic status quo and to make powerless the growing tide of unionism. In other words, to act primarily on behalf of business interests and against those of labor.⁵

The courts, too, got involved in economic affairs, but mostly on the behalf of industry. After the Civil War there was a firestorm of protest from American farmers that the railroads had far too much influence with state legislators. The chief complaint among these farmers was price gouging supported by the state. This Granger Movement successfully pushed many states to set price ceilings for railroad rates and grain elevators. And while the Panic of 1873 forced some railroad companies into bankruptcy and others simply could not afford to continue the bribery of state government officials, an anti-Granger sentiment was still pervasive among many railroad officials. Seeing that their influence in state governments had diminished, the mid-western companies sought protection from the federal government. Though few victories would come immediately, the early 1870s marked the beginning of the corporation's personification within the context of the Fourteenth Amendment.⁶

As the nation was recovering from the economic troubles and the railroad strikes of the 1870s, business leaders sought more protection from state and federal courts from the apparent assault on their power and livelihood. It would be the state courts first who would begin to effectively strike down regulatory state laws and

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