642 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



limit of liability ? If the corporation incurs debts exceeding its 

 liability, legislation can never make those debts less ; at best it 

 but relieves the stockholders, and makes the trusting public stand 

 the losses of the untrusting capitalist, and throws upon the shoul- 

 ders of the innocent the debts of the careless or dishonest. 



But the indictment against the corporation does not end with 

 complaints of its arrogance and unjust and dishonest methods ; 

 but its impersonal relation to society and labor is a source of 

 growing irritation, and threatens to make the labor question a 

 most perplexing problem. In transferring the liability from the 

 individual to the certificates of stock, personal responsibility was 

 extinguished. The importance or standing of a stockholder no 

 longer depends upon his wisdom, his uprightness, or integrity, 

 but upon the amount of his stock ; and, wherever the stock is 

 found, there the authority and liability reside, notwithstanding 

 the stock may be yours to-day and mine to-morrow. Corporations 

 having no personality have neither moral nor social obligations, 

 which are, or should be, imposed on all alike ; but not only are 

 they thus relieved of duties, but even the legal liability is a lim- 

 ited one only. 



Stockholders, screened behind their stock, will vote measures 

 toward their workmen which they would never dare to enforce as 

 individuals, for then they would subject themselves to the moral 

 condemnation which unjust and ill-considered action merits ; but 

 this impersonal relation of capital has introduced into our indus- 

 trial system a state of affairs resembling that of absentee land- 

 lordism in Ireland, in which the manager acts the part of " my 

 lord's agent." 



The stockholders of a corporation may be scattered over every 

 portion of the country or even throughout the world, and their 

 interests are in the hands of managers who best show their worth 

 by increased dividends, and, instead of serving as connecting links 

 between capital and labor, they more frequently serve as severing 

 wedges. It is by no means infrequent that men's wages are re- 

 duced dimes per day to increase the earnings, while the manager's 

 salary is increased thousands per year as a reward for his fidelity. 

 In this manner cheerful loyalty is giving place to a spiritless, 

 sullen performance of duty. Is it any wonder that a bitterness is 

 being engendered against capital as such ? — for, when divested of 

 personality, personal contact and, therefore, personal feeling are 

 impossible. In the course of twenty years' experience, I have 

 seen cheerful compliauce grow into indifference, and that indif- 

 ference gradually turn into feelings of smothered hostility. 



This want of personality is also debauching public morals, and 

 juries will render verdicts against corporations in spite of facts 

 and the law. Interests which should be mutuah forces which 



