Populist Lawyer Benjamin Fought Monopolies

Summary

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BLOOMINGTON <\ One hundred years ago, Judge Reuben Moore Benjamin of Bloomington warned of a future America when an "aristocracy of millionaires" with "unlimited powers" would control vast swaths of the U.S. economy.

Although in his early 80s and ostensibly retired, the old judge, who forged a legal career confronting railroads and the other behemoths of the Industrial Age, wasn't content to go quietly and politely into the night. He believed to the end that "undemocratic" and "unrepublican" monopolies or trusts posed a grave threat to the social, economic and political fabric of the nation.

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Extract

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Populist Lawyer Benjamin Fought Monopolies

Was Benjamin a rabble-rouser intent on inciting the working- class masses against the powers that be? On the contrary, this well- to-do at...

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