Providing information that in his stories he discusses the problems that he saw and examined what it took to be an honest graft and a dishonest graft. Which a honest graft is a person who follows the publics interest but as well as his/hers own personal interest. A dishonest graft is a person who steals from the treasury and takes bribes so that someone can make their own public decisions. As well as George Washington Plunkitt’s experiences of how newcomers trying to become politically intrigued in politics. His words even establish what a dishonest graft is in his
His work, The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy, allows readers to see a more picture perfect outlook on what the lives of these men entitled. Morris’s book was published in 2005, which allows readers to get a perspective from a long period of time and closer to reality rather than other historians writing on this era. The last author that allows readers to view the Robber Barons in a different manor is James Nuechterlein in his journal article Gifts of the “Robber Barons.” Nuechterlein wrote this article in 2007 allowing readers to view the men through historical resources that he uncovered. His stance shows a more balanced approach to the Robber Barons rather than saying one or the other was a better man than the other.
The assigned readings focused on the seven year corrupted political battle for the location of port Los Angeles. Each source offers their own take on how this political battle began, from corruption in California's state government to Santa Monica almost becoming the Port of Los Angeles. In the chapter by Bill Deverell, the Octopus, Southern Pacific Railroad, is shown how the company had both political and economic power during the Gilded Age. Its main goal was to move the Port of Los Angeles to Santa Monica in order to become a monopoly power, but progressive reformers realized the evil doings of SP, and decided to take the conflict to the U.S Senate. As for Moss's article, he portrays the same controversial and corrupted story by using a
Robber barons, specifically Andrew Carnegie, an industrialist and John D. Rockefeller, a philanthropist, were the chosen, elite members of society according to the doctrine of Social Darwinism. Darwinism is when evolution occurs and the strongest organisms of an ecosystem survive and reproduce to outnumber the weaker, less fit organisms of an ecosystem. Similarly Social Darwinism follows the same concept, but in a capitalist sense of thought. Those who were able to exploit the Gilded Age’s laissez faire economy to their own benefit, like the robber barons Andrew Carnegie of Carnegie Steel and J. D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil, were the fittest members of society because they were able to survive in the grueling and ruthless free economy. By usurping all of the fresh yet unfit immigrants that were flowing into the States due to the rise of urbanization, these two men integrated these easily-manipulated people into their factories to augment their profits.
At the end of the 19th Century, as the United States was experiencing rapid industrialization, a reconfiguration of the social order yielded opposing visions of social progress. Andrew Carnegie, wealthy businessman, and Jane Addams, founder of Chicago’s Hull House, put forward different methods to achieve such progress, where Addams focuses on creating social capital in a seemingly horizontal manner while Carnegie advocates for a top-down approach. While both of them seem to reap a sense of purpose from their attempts to improve the nation, their approaches vary depending on their vision of the composition of the population they want to uplift. First, Carnegie and Addams’ desire to improve society is partly self-serving. For Carnegie, improving society is the role of the wealthy man who, “animated by Christ’s spirit” (“Wealth”), can administer wealth for the community better than it could have for itself (“Wealth”).
Carnegie thinks it is better to build public institutions than give charity to the poor because the poor need to have the “desire to improve” and find help in these public institutions. (Carnegie 30). He believes that rather wealthy “Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives” can find the proper use for their money, which is to help the community. (Carnegie 29). By just giving money to the poor the wealthy are doing all their work and instead the poor should find the assistance they need to improve their lives.
It is apparent that he doesn’t notice the difference between honest and dishonest graft: he compares the Tammany Hall to the Philly Republic gang and puts them into the same category. This goes again with Plunkitt’s quote about the looters only going in for himself. Plunkitt describes the members of the Philadelphia Republican gang as these “looters” who have consequently ruined their political career. Plunkitt considers himself and members of Tammany Hall to be honest by his definition, although some see any form of graft as abuse of the political system, but this was not something Plunkitt thought of
The drive for money and profit and the complete disregard for the lives of many who may be affected by the pursuit of the dollar. Moore narrates, “Meanwhile, the more fortunate in Flint were holding their annual Great Gatsby party at the home
Underpinnings and Effectiveness of Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth” In Andrew Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth”, Carnegie proposed a system of which he thought was best to dispose of “surplus wealth” through progress of the nation. Carnegie wanted to create opportunities for people “lift themselves up” rather than directly give money to these people. This was because he considered that giving money to these people would be “improper spending”.
In Huckleberry Finn, Huck is abused by his father Pap and so Huck pretends to be dead so Pap will stop chasing him to try and kill him. Huck found a large sum of money,$6,000. Pap is very poor and lives in a shack in the middle of nowhere.
“Dishonest money dwindles away, but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow” Proverbs 13:11 (NIV). In our lesson this week we studied three different men; the first being Benjamin Franklin, the second, Charles Dow, and the third, Charles Ponzi. For the Scripture I chose this week, I am going to use Benjamin Franklin and Charles Ponzi as examples. The first part of this Scripture says, “Dishonest money dwindles away”.
"The Plunkitt of Tammany Hall" written by William L. Riordon about George W. Plunkitt's multiple talks in defense of his career in the political machine Tammany Hall. George W. Plunkitt was a ward boss of the Tammany Hall Political machine. It was full of corruption which made George W. Plunkitt wealthy. Before people knew about Tammany Hall being corrupt, George W. Plunkitt tried to defend Tammany Hall throughout his political career in order to keep making a lot of money. Some of George W. Plunkitt's talks were on his honest graft against dishonest graft, Civil Service reforms, Tammany Hall being patriotic, and how successful politicians do not drink.
He mad lame excuses to Jim for why he got the money. “He said I owned it to him because one of his mules died about a month ago. ”(38) He blamed Jim for his mule dying and he owned him just so he could have the money. Jim was trying to keep afloat but was struggling making his daughter starve, and deciding she should have to life through these
For instance, Carnegie presented his library named Carnegie Library, he considers this “the best kind of philanthropy” (Ernsberger). By this he indicates the correct way a wealthy individual should live,is by giving back to the community. On the contrary, Richard argues this as negative affect to the company due to the loss of income. Richard believes that Carnegie shouldn’t have spent his money on helping the community instead, he should have continued to invest it on the steel industry. Overall, Richard views Carnegie as “little capitalist who urged presidents to do right things in Philippines, Panama and international diplomacy [but] had never done the right or moral thing as a businessman,” (Ernsberger).
Whenever asked the question on how Gatsby maked his money, he would always answer that he built up a few drugstores and when his parents died he inherited money. Gatsby was never telling the truth about this; and Tom eventually figured this out. Gatsby wanted to appear as old money to impress Daisy which is why he lied. However, the reason why Gatsby never told the truth about how he made his money was because he was making his money illegally. In chapter seven, Tom accuses Gatsby of being a bootlegger, “He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side street drug stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter” (133).
