444 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and better prices for Avliat they have to sell, as well as a greater 

 capacity for the extension of our trade and commerce with the world 

 at lar^e, then they ai-e not an unwelcome accession to our social order, 

 but rcpi'esent the relined and linished product of modern, social and 

 industrial evolution. 



There are two Avorthy ends which everv individual should be encour- 

 ajjed by his •jovernmcnt in attaining. First, to own a home; second, to 

 own an independent business. It can safely be said that the larjijer the 

 number of our people who are enjoyin*^ these two blessings, the more 

 generally contented, indei)endent and happy will we be. 



It is not my i>urpose, nor is this the place, to consider any academic 

 incjuiry into the social problems of the day, but it occurs to me as a 

 suggestion which I wish to throw out to you educated men and women 

 whether or not the present rapid rush towards the indiscriminate 

 organization of commercial power, into single highly capitalized corpora- 

 tions for the transaction of nearlv everv kind of business, is not a 

 serious menace to the ambition of the humble masses of our peoi)le 

 and hence to the prosperity of our nation. 



Is it well that individual man should become bound up like the 

 wheels and shafts of a great factory, each dependent upon some con- 

 necting part of a machine, and the whole controlled by the will of one 

 master? Do these huge aggregations of capital advance or retard 

 individual wealth and happiness among the greatest number of our 

 people? Do they not often tend to crush out the moral courage as well 

 as destroy the business of the individual producer, merchant and 

 manufacturer? 



Ever since commercial trusts were held illegal by the United States 

 Supreme Court, capital has slipped the noose and accomplished the same 

 results by organizing as private or quasi public corporations under the 

 laws of some one of our states of identically the same kind that have 

 been created and favored all over our nation for the last half century. 



With this artificial entity as a nucleus, an accretion of capital sets in, 

 ■eventually bringing about a great consolidation of business interests. 

 Thus by a legal circumvention of the trust plan, the radical idea for a 

 union of forces is worked out that is equally effective to accomplish 

 every result which in reality made the trusts illegal. A little leger- 

 demain turned the trick. It is presto, change! Now you see it, and now 

 you don't. 



Their object is to exercise artificial rights and privileges not pos- 

 sessed by the individual. They receive their breath of life by force of 

 state statutes. The primary legal idea of corporations is that they com- 

 bine the capital, talents and skill of many individuals in one pursuit 

 and seek to secure for the stockholders advantages which none of them 

 can gain single handed. 



The public utility of these modern consolidated groups of corpora- 

 tions, sometimes called judicious combinations, but misnamed trusts, 

 is now being questioned. When once born and set on their feet they 

 have the world before them for their field of labor, and the question 

 will arise in giving our federal government control over them, if that 

 is the remedy, whether or not the people of the states wish to surrender 

 to the federal government another very large portion of their sovereign 



