Front Paged at Progressive Historians
Colorado has a history of rugged western individualism. The Gold Rush of 1859 saw fortune seekers flock into the majestic Rocky Mountains and build legendary gold camps like Central City, Leadville, Cripple Creek just to name a few of the thousands of places that stand in ruins as ghost towns throughout the state today.
In 1862, a mint was built in Denver for most of the gold was laying in streams and placer beds where it was scooped up, assayed and melted into coins and ingots. An estimated 100,000 gold seekers took part in the greatest gold rushes in North American history.
It was Pike's Peak or Bust!
The phenomenon of "gold fever" is unlike any other I am told. The rush of Greed is so powerful that little else matters in hording whatever one takes.
It is one of the darker sides of humankind.
The gold rushes were the precursors to the Civil War and Reconstruction and the unprecedented economic, industrial, and population expansions of America.
The gold rushes of California and Colorado preceeded the coming of the Guilded Age, a term made popular by Mark Twain, which overlapped the Industrial Revolution. An age of Bankers, Investors, Industrialists and corrupt politicians ; the rise of corporations,corrupt urban political machines and the steady influx of immigrants.
The first Industrial Revolution [of Great Britain] merged into the Second Industrial Revolution around 1850 in North America, when technological and economic progress gained momentum with the development of steam-powered ships, railways, and later in the nineteenth century with the internal combustion engine and electrical power generation. wiki
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" Alphonse Karr 1808-1890 from "Les Guêpes" in 1849.
The Gilded Age was rooted in industrialization, especially heavy industry like factories, railroads and coal mining. During the Gilded Age, American manufacturing production surpassed the combined total of Great Britain, Germany, and France. Railroad mileage tripled between 1860 and 1880, and tripled again by 1920, opening new areas to commercial farming, creating a truly national marketplace and inspiring a boom in coal mining and steel production. The voracious appetite for capital of the great trunk railroads facilitated the consolidation of the nation's financial market in Wall Street. By 1900, the process of economic concentration had extended into most branches of industry—a few large corporations, called "trusts", dominated in steel, oil, sugar, meatpacking, and the manufacture of agriculture machinery. Other major components of this infrastructure were the new methods for fabricating steel: the Bessemer and the Siemens steel making processes. The first billion-dollar corporation was United States Steel, formed by financier J. P. Morgan in 1901, who purchased and consolidated steel firms built by Andrew Carnegie and many other entrepreneurs.
The populism of the 20th century that brought us labor unions, public schools, voting rights, jobs and social security for the common man were all born of the excesses of yesteryears captains of industry who aligned themselves with corrupt politicians in a system of payoffs,patronage, scandal and corruption.
During the Gilded Age, approximately 10 million immigrants came to the United States, many in search of religious freedom and greater prosperity. The population surge in major U.S. cities as a result of immigration gave cities an even stronger impact on government, attracting power-hungry politicians and entrepreneurs. Pressuring voters or falsifying ballots was commonplace for politicians, who often sought power only to exploit their constituents.
And now 100 years later, The Democratic party must again don the mantle of the common man... the ordinary person, the working families of America in this gilded Digital Age. The age of Microsoft obselescence, The Information Hiway, The Technological revolution.
I reject the Ayn Rand worship of the survival of the fittest (richest).
I call on the candidates of the Democratic Party to defend the Constitution and the Rule of Law. To proclaim the Declaration of Independence that "All Men are created equal" and to uphold the principles of Equality, Justice, Peace and Human Dignity...here...in America.
Not for the Haliburton's, not for Big Pharma, nor the Insurance companies, the monopolies of Media, the war profiteers and their armies of Lobbyists and the tax rebates for the already filthy rich;
But for the hopes and dreams of the common person.
I give you the words of Senator Obama:
And once again, we are faced with a politics that makes all of this possible. In the last six years, our leaders have thrown open the doors of Congress and the White House to an army of Washington lobbyists who have turned our government into a game only they can afford to play – a game played on a field that's no longer level, but rigged to always favor their own narrow agendas.
From Jack Abramoff to Tom Delay, from briberies to indictments, the scandals that have plagued Washington over the last few years have been too numerous to recall.
But their most troubling aspect goes far beyond the headlines that focus on the culprits and their crimes. It's an entire culture in Washington – some of it legal, some of it not – that allows this to happen. Because what's most outrageous is not the morally offensive conduct on behalf of these lobbyists and legislators, but the morally offensive laws and decisions that get made as a result.
An excerpt from The ArtKos Poetry Chapbook.
F.D.R. wherefore art thou?
Come hither from the grave!
For you know how Republicans
Know not... how to behave.
We fight the Robber Barons yore
The Pirates and.... the Knave
To rally New Deal working folk
'Tis worthy still to save.