Robber Barons ' Mock Trial
The term robber baron was first created by Matthew Josephson to describe the corrupt, cruel businessmen who made their fortunes off the backs of innocent working-class Americans in the late nineteenth century. While most people can only name a few of the infamous robber barons- like Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Rockefeller- another, lesser known, thief also falls under that category, more deserving of the name robber baron than even some of the well-known crooks. Leland Stanford was truer to the name robber baron than many others. He took any situation that came his way and manipulated it to increase his power and wealth, no matter who he hurt or destroyed in the process.
Leland Stanford, originally Amasa Leland
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He forced his brothers from the grocery shop they had opened and, despite not even participating in its creation, became the fraudulent store 's only beneficiary. He manipulated his position in the Central Pacific Railroad Company to snatch the position as the California Governor and then used his position as the California Governor to snatch the position of company president from one of his closest friends. He left his original occupation as a lawyer because he wasn 't making what he found to be a satisfactory amount of money and instead decided that his fortune would be more easily made through manipulation, theft, and graft. He manipulated public opinion and forced any scandal that could 've damaged his political or social standing onto those around him, choosing to ruin the lives of his friends and family instead of facing up to his malicious plans and actions. He exploited any person or event in his life to better suit him, even maneuvering his son 's death into a ploy for improving public opinion of himself by opening a prestigious-now well-know- university commemorating his son 's death and drawing the public to love and sympathize with him again. Leland Stanford, in short, was not a Robber Baron; he was a monster who cared for nothing in his life, except money and power and he proved time and time again that he was willing to crush