Hawk1981
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- Apr 1, 2020
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Henry Demarest Lloyd was a leading figure in the 19th century American progressive reform movement. During his career he was a strong supporter of women's suffrage and the trade union movement. He campaigned for an end to child labor and for clemency for the men accused in the Haymarket Bombing at Chicago in 1886.
Lloyd is generally considered America's first investigative journalist for his work in the 1880s on a series of articles he wrote exposing corruption in business and politics. In his best known book, Wealth Against Commonwealth (1894), he attacked the unbridled corporate power of Standard Oil and similar monopolies.
John D. Rockefeller and his partners through elimination of competitors, mergers, and favorable use of railroad rebates, had built Standard Oil into a company that by 1880 controlled between 90 and 95 percent of all oil produced in the United States. In 1882 Standard Oil Company and its affiliates that were engaged in producing, refining and marketing oil were combined into the Standard Oil Trust. Through this arrangement, companies could be purchased, created, dissolved, merged, or divided. The trustees eventually controlled some 40 separate corporations, including 14 that were wholly owned. The structure was so convoluted by design, that it was virtually impervious to public investigation.
Lloyd described the continuing abuses and excesses of the monopolies and the social impacts in emotional terms, "If our civilization is destroyed," it will not be by barbarians from below. "Our barbarians come from above. Our great money-makers have sprung in one generation into seats of power kings do not know. The forces and the wealth are new, and have been the opportunity of new men. Without restraints of culture, experience, the pride, or even the inherited caution of class or rank, these men, intoxicated, think they are the wave instead of the float."
The Standard Oil Trust was eventually broken up in 1911 as the result of a landmark US Supreme Court Case, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey v. United States.
Lloyd is generally considered America's first investigative journalist for his work in the 1880s on a series of articles he wrote exposing corruption in business and politics. In his best known book, Wealth Against Commonwealth (1894), he attacked the unbridled corporate power of Standard Oil and similar monopolies.
John D. Rockefeller and his partners through elimination of competitors, mergers, and favorable use of railroad rebates, had built Standard Oil into a company that by 1880 controlled between 90 and 95 percent of all oil produced in the United States. In 1882 Standard Oil Company and its affiliates that were engaged in producing, refining and marketing oil were combined into the Standard Oil Trust. Through this arrangement, companies could be purchased, created, dissolved, merged, or divided. The trustees eventually controlled some 40 separate corporations, including 14 that were wholly owned. The structure was so convoluted by design, that it was virtually impervious to public investigation.
Lloyd described the continuing abuses and excesses of the monopolies and the social impacts in emotional terms, "If our civilization is destroyed," it will not be by barbarians from below. "Our barbarians come from above. Our great money-makers have sprung in one generation into seats of power kings do not know. The forces and the wealth are new, and have been the opportunity of new men. Without restraints of culture, experience, the pride, or even the inherited caution of class or rank, these men, intoxicated, think they are the wave instead of the float."
The Standard Oil Trust was eventually broken up in 1911 as the result of a landmark US Supreme Court Case, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey v. United States.
