Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 24.pdf/510

 The American Bar Association

469

We cannot give free rein to human desires, tion providing for the popular elec and passions or to the powers of wealth, with tion of members of the Senate. He re out endangering the moral and physical condi ferred to the Lorimer case as strengthen tion of the great majority of the people. Such ing the popular sentiment in favor of legislation is therefore bound to come. Shall this step. we nationalize it? Shall we make it uniform? Speaking of the failure of the peace Shall it be the movement of the whole people? treaties between the United States, Shall we guide it into wise channels? Or shall we blindly oppose it, throw obstacles in the Great Britain and France, he said: "For way, let it be sectional, and ineffectual? my part, I feel sincere regret that these It is my opinion that the time is coming when treaties were not ratified by the Senate the regulation of the transportation lines will and I think the members of this associa of necessity be exclusively in the hands of the tion, as well as the people at large, are federal government. Congress can, through a system of license and incorporation, limit the deeply indebted to the President for his size, capital and manner of doing business of sincere and earnest efforts thus to pro corporations engaged in interstate commerce. mote the great cause of international I believe Congress has power either by federal charter or federal license to incorporate and peace. Referring to the action of certain control industrial combinations. I believe the of uniform action among the states is an States in extending the suffrage to hope idle dream. It is perfectly hopeless to expect that women, Mr. Gregory said: "It certainly the forty-eight states, with varying interests, seems as if women were entitled to self- conditions of industry and people, will ever agree to a uniform system of corporation laws government as well as men." which shall properly limit and control corpora tions engaged in interstate commerce.

"THE NEW NATIONALISM" FEDERAL INCORPORATION

Frank B. Kellogg of Minnesota, in his annual address, said, in part: — There is a world movement to liberal dem ocracy. The individual is rising in the scale of importance. More and more he is participa ting in public affairs. This new idea, this new conception of government, is bursting the bonds of traditional forms and is sweeping away many of our cherished ideals. Its cause we know not. Its ultimate goal we but dimly see. These move ments are not the work of demagogues, nor flotsam and jetsam upon the tides of human history. They are deep-seated. They spring from the great mass of the people. They are movements of the public conscience, and never have been and never will be checked or stopped. [Mr. Kellogg, whose subject was "The New Nationalism," discussed among the great move ments affecting the government and the laws of the country, the popular demand for direct participation in the affairs of government, the initiative, the referendum and the recall. Of the new nationalism Mr. Kellogg said] — This movement toward a higher education and more liberal democracy has undoubtedly been largely caused by a general public demand for legisla tion and control in our industrial life.

Congress should pass a permissive incorpora tion act. It should not be compulsory, because it would be difficult for many corporations now organized under the state laws to change their organization; but with such a statute many corporations would avail themselves of the privilege and would thereby bring themselves completely within the regulative power of Con gress or of a commission created under authority of federal law. There should, however, be a compulsory license, which should be the alternative of fed eral incorporation, and large corporations en gaged in interstate commerce, other than rail ways and purely transportation companies, should be required to take out a license containing substantially the same restrictions and provi sions contained in a federal incorporation act. I would make this applicable only to corpora tions whose size gives them the power so to injure and suppress individual enterprise. Congress should, therefore, in my opinion, provide for such a system of federal license in volving control by a corporation commission. Such license should be issued upon condition that the corporation make report and submit its affairs to examination, thereby insuring that