Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/182

 IMPRISONMENT OF CORPORATIONS their valuable persons be confined within a common jail? If a great corporation becomes bankrupt the argument that the public interest will suffer by the appoint ment of a Receiver is not likely to prevent such action by the Federal Court. The imprisonment of a corporation by putting its affairs in control of government officials is not radically different from the process of Receivership. If a Receivership is the best aid which the law can give to the creditors of a bankrupt, is it a very far stretch of analogies to believe that imprison ment of a criminal corporation amounting to complete governmental control, tempo rarily, would be the best aid and protec tion in the power of the government to be granted to law-abiding citizens? How the public at large could suffer by the substi tution of governmental control of enter prises for private criminal control is not easy of comprehension. The fourth point urged by Mr. Judson is that preventive remedies are more effective than punitive remedies. There is no neces sity of taking issue with this proposition which is fairly axiomatic. Two facts should, however, be borne in mind. First, that the preventive remedy suggested — that of injunction — has been in existence for many decades and our present system of wide monopolistic control of practically every important industry bears eloquent witness to the efficacy of this remedy. It may well be that a wider use of this preventive weapon and increased activity and honesty of officers of government will accomplish much toward the solution of present day problems. Second, however, as long as it is necessary to have punitive laws by the thousands on the statute books to hold fear before the eyes of the private individual it will also be necessary to have punitive laws to restrain the pernicious activities of artificial persons. In fact it may well be argued on the lines suggested in replying to Mr. Judson's first point that punitive remedies will be of far greater effect in deal

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ing with artificial persons than they can be when reckoning with the emotions of human beings. Increase the risk and danger of unlawful enterprises and necessarily the amount of capital offered for investment in such lines must decrease proportionately. Nowhere is there a better opportunity to make a true application of the semi-false statement that there is no sentiment in business than in dealing with the present situation. "Fear," as a weapon against human beings, may simply inspire greater courage and daring. Fear, applied to an artificial person, to a business proposition, shows its results in a decreased market value, an attack on the most vulnerable spot in the corporation's anatomy. Irrespective, however, of academic con siderations as to whether preventive reme dies are more effective than punitive, it is a fair proposition of law that since we must have in our midst, for the facility of business, artificial persons granted many of the rights of natural persons and also many rights not enjoyed by natural persons, the penalties attached to criminal acts of human beings should be extended just as far as is logically possible to cover the criminal acts of these artificial persons.1 If the arguments of corporations had been N heeded during the development of modern law, we would find to-day that the States, in granting corporate charters, would be creating Frankensteins menacing practically all of our much prized constitutional protections. Private individ uals would have continually to deal with beings possessing boundless rights, unre strained activities and amenable to no process of law, undeterred in illegal trans-

1 Purdy's Beach on Private Corporations. Chap, on Crimes and Criminal Prosecutions, Sec. 1 01 5: "The whole course of authorities shows that an action for a wrong will lie against a corporation, where the act complained of is done within the scope of its incorporation and is one which would constitute an actionable wrong, if done by an individual. "