PROMOTERS AND PROMOTING 



state corporation to pay in dividends more 

 than, say, a fourth or a third of its profits, 

 until a certain goodly reserve had been 

 piled up; in other words, compelling more 

 care for stability and less for immediate 

 profits. Such a law would force promoters 

 to act more soberly, discourage over-capital- 

 ization, keep rickety propositions off the 

 market, and render new enterprises from 

 the first investors' instead of speculators' 

 affairs. It would make promoting less 

 giddy, safer, and more popular, and it 

 would deliver the promoter from a great 

 part of the odium under which he now 

 partly rests and partly squirms. 



Besides reducing the frenzy of high 

 finance, a United States law insisting that 

 each new corporation doing business across 

 state lines begin by accumulating a goodly 

 reserve without regard to its early divi- 

 dends, would produce a number of other 

 most benign results. It would: i. Drive 

 speculative, as contrasted with investing, 

 promoters and underwriters out of the busi- 

 ness. 2. Decrease mere gambling specula- 



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