Book Review

William G. Thomas has written an important book for legal, business, and southern historians. By examining the changing role of lawyers in the New South, he provides insight into how railroads helped transform the law, the economy, and southern society. He also adds to our understanding of how an increasingly organized national market affected southern communities and their traditional economic relationships after the Civil War. Robert Wiebe, Louis Galambos, Alfred Chandler and others have shown the dramatic influence that railroads had on business and society. Thomas's work contributes to this literature by exploring these economic and social changes on the practice of law in the New South.	1
In the nineteenth century, railroads represented economic growth, technological progress, and a modern society. Economic modernization, however, was not always a neat and tidy process. As Thomas points out, the construction and operation of southern railroads "carved a path of death, destruction, delay, and deposition through the heart of the New South" (61). Who had to clean up after the railroad? A new breed of professional, corporate lawyers. It became their job not only to fight personal-injury litigation, but also to soothe bruised local feelings and to lobby against an increasingly hostile legislative environment. In the process, they transformed the practice of law.	2
After the Civil War, southern railroads expanded dramatically and railroad corporations (increasingly northern-owned) depended on local attorneys, familiar with the history and politics of a region, to obtain titles and rights of way for the lines. Thomas points out that the railroads believed that local attorneys brought a familiar and friendly face to an outside, corporate power. Often this approach worked, as railroads hired the best lawyers who were also the "men of influence" both in the politics and commercial enterprises of a town.	3
As a few northern corporations consolidated thousands of miles of southern track in the 1880s, the nature of southern attorneys' services changed. Lawyering for the railroad became more centralized and bureaucratic. In-house counsel for the railroads oversaw local attorneys, as lines of authority, supervision, and control tightened. Lawyers who served as "leading counsel for the large railroad systems increasingly found themselves in conference rooms, not courtrooms. A large portion of their work entailed supervision and review of the action taking place at a lower level" (143). Some local attorneys chafed at their loss of autonomy. The centralization of the corporate legal profession, Thomas asserts, began to split the bar between corporate lawyers and those lawyers who fought corporate power. Thomas observes that this divide in the legal profession coincided with a growing anti-corporate attitude among many southerners.	4
Consolidation of southern railroads accompanied an increase in personal-injury suits and government regulation. Until the 1890s, railroads held the upper hand in personal-injury cases. They often escaped paying damages by using the fellow-servant rule, contributory negligence, and the assumption of risk as legal defenses. All of these methods made it very difficult for plaintiffs to win damages against a railroad. As public outrage against railroad power grew, however, southern legislatures attacked these legal defenses and held railroads liable for passenger and employee injuries.	5
Southern railroad attorneys had to adapt to the new personal-injury environment. Besides adopting a more efficient and centralized legal hierarchy, railroad lawyers relied on several techniques to win their cases. One of the most effective methods was to stall. Often by dragging out a case for months or years they could get a favorable out-of-court settlement. Railroad lawyers also moved cases from state courts to more conservative federal courts. Moreover, railroads began to use expert testimony from doctors and engineers. Despite these new methods, however, personal-injury awards increased dramatically in the 1890s.	6
Railroad attorneys often blamed hostile state governments and public opinion for their problems in court. Southern legislatures began to regulate railroads, especially their freight rates, in response to a growing agrarian protest and a fear of monopoly power. Thomas shows that in order to fight regulatory legislation, southern railroad attorneys took on a new role--that of lobbyist. They began to testify before legislative committees and regulatory commissions and also worked behind the scenes to prevent hostile legislation or to weaken its effect. In addition, railroads bought newspapers in order to get more favorable publicity.	7
After the turn of the century, railroad lawyers faced more aggressive federal regulation and a strengthened ICC. Thomas argues that southern railroad lawyers did not immediately grasp the advantage of federal regulation and fought against it. By 1908, however, many had come to believe that uniform regulation at a national level was better than chaotic and often contradictory, and sometimes obnoxious, state legislation. For example, Thomas has an interesting section on how southern segregation laws caused many problems for interstate railroads.	8
Thomas shows that by the early twentieth century the modern, corporate law firm had become a fixture of the New South. He supports his thesis with an impressive amount of research. There are, however, important questions that Thomas does not ask. Who were these lawyers? He would have offered valuable insights into the character of the New South had he told us about the socio-economic and educational backgrounds, age, religion, and the politics of this new generation of lawyers. Also, which lawyers were likely to work for a railroad and which to bring personal-injury suits? Was there a rural/urban conflict within the bar? Despite these questions, Thomas has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the emergence of a New South and the evolving practice of law.	9
Steven G. Collins St. Louis Community College at Meramec

Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.