g manipulated by big companies, and the majority of america’s population sufferred. The success of big businesses owed itself to the success of railroad production. The construction of railroads was induced by the increasing number of people who desperately needed it for transportation to their work places, however far it may be. At its height american length of railraod was more than all of Europe combined. Government showed its support in railroad construction when it granted 170 million acres of land for railroads. This vast land could have been granted as homesteads for america’s poor families, but government had shown its favor in business. When prices in rural, non-competitive areas were ridiculously high, enough farmers complained for the government to pass the Interstate Railroad Act, which required railroad rates to be reasonable, and denied the power of individual states to regulate interstate commerce. This Act proved to be a failure in the case of Munn versus Illinois when Supreme Court upheld the right of states to regulate business. Much of the land available for railroad construction was seized from native americans. In addition to that, the Gold Rush in California caused thousands of americans to seek land in western land, an area inhabited greatly by native americans at that time. Even though 2/3 of western tribal groups lived on the Great Plains, the Homestead Act promised land to american settlement right on these lands. In the neighboring territory of Oklahoma, thousands of whites continued to pour into the rich land. US took action under the US Census Bureau to declare the closing of the frontier, but at that time most of the land had already been seized by land speculators who had been waiting desperately for a chance. Furious native americans attempted to resist US domination and drive the whites from their lands in the Battle of Wounded Knee, in which over 200 native americans were killed. This disast...
