Few writers have called the Second Industrial Revolution’s organized elites, including large, medium, and small business owners and managers, “terrorists.” Though hardly uncritical, most business historians have portrayed them as culturally sophisticated, restrained, and hardheaded men responsible for establishing and promoting modern management methods on a growing and vibrant economy.

This is undoubtedly true. After all, they oversaw the construction of workplaces, created jobs, offered employees benefits, developed useful patents, and introduced consumers to a dizzying array of products. These men generally conducted their business and social activities from the comforts of spacious offices, fancy restaurants, and exclusive clubs.

But many of these same people also had a dark side, which became obvious in the context of labor struggles, broadly defined. Many resorted to violence to achieve their core goals: control over labor and the establishment of what they called “law and order.” With these objectives in mind, they formed and joined various secretive and brutal organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1860s and early 1870s, numerous Law and Order Leagues in the 1880s and 1890s, and an assortment of employers’ associations and Citizens’ Alliances during the “Progressive Era.” Like other terrorists, they shared an underlying assumption that extralegal methods — kidnappings, drive-out operations, whippings, lynchings, and shootings — were warranted to solve their problems.