I n t e r n a t i o n a l J o u r n a l o f A c c o u n t i n g R e s e a r c h ISSN: 2472-114X OPEN ACCESS Freely available online Review Article 1 International Journal of Accounting Research Int J Account Res, Vol. 7 Iss. 1 No: 193 Riding the Iron Horse into the Future of Regulation: The Contribution of Charles Francis Adams Jr Timothy J Fogarty* Department of Accountancy, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, USA ABSTRACT Charles F. Adams Jr. instigated the creation of the Massachusetts Railway Commission in 1869. This freestanding body sought to oversee the overall the operation of railroads in that state. This paper suggests that many of our current ideas about the process and content of commercial regulation were developed in the historical context. Keywords: Railroad; Economy; Accounting INTRODUCTION Studies in accounting history are predicated on the assumption that contemporary issues benefit from a more complete understanding made possible only by an analysis of origins. In other words better knowledge about the past provides a needed prologue to the appreciation of the present. This paper takes up this gauntlet by highlighting the work of Charles Adams and the Massachusetts Railroad Commission in the decades following the Civil War in the United States. The assertion of this work is that the seeds of modern accounting and business regulation were planted by the man at this time. To some extent, these origins would revise the conventional placement of the genesis in the turn of the 20 th century’s formation of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and the efforts of the Theodore Roosevelt administration. Although no contribution to our current way of thinking is so original or unprecedented to not owe equivalent debts to those that came before, the work of Adams merits additional attention in the regulation literature. This paper is organized to first establish the historical facts, a retelling of which would be news to many. The two longest sections of the paper will detail the multifaceted contributions to the process of regulation and to the content of regulation. Throughout, parallels to the modern uses and debates will be identified. This paper concludes with a summary assessment of the place of Adams as a forerunner of modern regulatory thought. THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT Although much has been written about the role of the railroad in the industrialization of the United States [1] a brief acknowledgement of the uniqueness of that moment is necessary. The dawning of a system whereby goods produced in one area could be sold in another held such obvious promise that the emergent industry’s capitalization was sudden and unprecedented [2]. America’s first real big business offered unique economic problems most notably, virtually unlimited economics of scale scrambled traditional ideas about competition. In addition, the fever to raise capital dispatched the traditional ideas that investors could ground trust in their personal knowledge of responsible individuals. In an era, resistant to both monopoly and public ownership, the practice of capitalism needed to evolve. Railroads were the harbinger and the facilitator of the legendarily sharp practices that would soon facilitate the rise of the robber barons. Ironically, the shenanigans that led to great fortunes tended to be obscured by the great commercial progress that new technology made possible. Adams, a member of the illustrious New England family that included two presidents eschewed a career in the law for the opportunity to pave at then a relatively uncharted course as a regulator. Awed by the prospect of the railroad and mindful of its public interest implications, Adams instigated the formation of the Massachusetts Railway Commission in 1869. Well before the federal government would play any significant part, this body headed by Adams would be a role model for other states confronting the problem of the railroad. In reflection of the fractured power of the individual states, Adams organized the Saratoga Convention of 1879 that convened many state relations and advocated common solutions. This event would serve as a template for subsequent efforts by the ICC, which in turn would regularize the chaotic business of railroading. Throughout his career, Charles Adams was at the fulcrum of weighty issues. He was called upon to consider the fairness of *Correspondence to: Timothy J Fogarty, Department of Accountancy, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, USA, Tel: 216 368 3938; E-mail: tjf@case.edu Received: December 23, 2018; Accepted: January 21, 2019; Published: January 28, 2019 Citation: Fogarty TJ (2019) Riding the Iron Horse into the Future of Regulation: The Contribution of Charles Francis Adams Jr. Int J Account Res 7:193. doi: 10.35248/2472-114X.19.7.193 Copyright: © 2019 Fogarty TJ. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.