by Dennis Drabelle (Get the Book)Both the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads were beneficiaries of immense federal government largesse as incentives and rewards for building the transcontinental railroad. For example, the Central Pacific received a series of huge long-term government loans. By 1896 payment was due, and the railroad, aided by an army of lobbyists and a bankroll generously distributed to legislators, sought to gain extended payment terms. When William Randolph Hearst got wind of the dodge, he tapped Ambrose Bierce to write a series of scorching muckraking articles attacking railroad practices. A decade later, the novelist Frank Norris wrote a fictionalized account of these abuses in his classic The Octopus. Drabelle, a contributing editor to the Washington Post Book World, places this war within the context of the reformist impulses that characterized the progressive movement at the turn of the twentieth century. He also offers interesting background on the careers of Bierce and Norris as well as the growth of the railroad industry. This is a fast-moving account and a paean to investigative journalism. --Booklist
