198 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



move them to action. Public opinion must be enlightened, 

 public sentiment stirred and public will evoked before the 

 State will act resolutely, the public insist upon its rights, 

 consumers co-operate for mutual protection, and Avorking 

 men and salaried employees and small business men join 

 together in wise and efficient effort. In the mean time, the 

 abuses of the trusts continue, and dangers threaten. One 

 great cause of the delay in the movement towards reform 

 is the placing of thousands of shares of the stock of great 

 monopolistic corporations among the people, where they 

 will do the most good in strengthening the power of the 

 trusts. The stockholders who get large dividends are slow 

 to see abuses on the part of managers, and loth to protest 

 when evils are shown them ; the multitudes who have in- 

 vested their savings in stocks and have lost heavily keep 

 still, lest their shame be made public and they lose the little 

 values that may yet remain to them ; while other people who 

 speculate in stocks on margins are prevented from joining 

 any movement to check the audacity of corporations. 



But the time has now come when the rights and duties of 

 all stockholders should be made plain. The stockholders 

 are the owners of the corporation, and should be held respon- 

 sible for the deeds of directors and officers. But the number 

 of stockholders of a large corporation is so large, and they 

 are often so widely scattered, that any efficient action on 

 their part for the reform of abuses against themselves or 

 others is difficult to secure. They are for the most part kept 

 in ignorance of the policy and management of the corpora- 

 tion. The minority can do little or nothing when the ma- 

 jority of the stock is in the hands of a few\ The directors 

 are elected by the stockholders, and are nominally their 

 servants ; but, once elected, their power is supreme. The 

 directors elect the officers, and are supposed to direct and 

 control their actions ; but not infrequently it happens that 

 the directors are mere figure-heads, while a few officers man- 

 age affairs and run the business, — not for the l)enefit of the 

 stockholders, but for their own. The inner ring makes fort- 

 unes for its members, while the average stockholder may 

 congratulate himself if he does not lose a large portion of 

 his capital invested. Stockholders have been defrauded time 



