202 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pul). Doc. 



secure the uncertain profits of the future for itself before they 

 are actually earned. This one prohibition would remedy a 

 multitude of evils. It would do much to check stock manip- 

 ulation and speculation and to protect honest investments. 



4. No public franchise should be given or sold to a cor- 

 poration. The use of the franchise should be allowed the 

 corporation on condition that it pay to the State its fair 

 value, to be determined every ten years by appraisement. 



5. Each corporation shall pay its full share of taxation 

 to each State in which it does business, its share to be deter- 

 mined by the amount of property and value of the business 

 done within the State. 



6. Each corporation shall be independent of every other 

 corporation, and to this end no corporation shall lease itself 

 to another and no corporation shall own the stock of another. 

 If combination is necessary, one corporation may dissolve, 

 and its property and franchises and obligations be trans- 

 ferred to the other corporation. If one corporation may own 

 or control other corporations, responsibility cannot be fixed, 

 many irregularities may be covered up and evils follow which 

 cannot be remedied. But if each corporation has its special 

 functions defined in its charter, and it be held strictly to the 

 performance of these, the problem of controlling it will be 

 greatly simplified, its rights secured and the discharge of its 

 duties enforced. 



7 . Uniformity of corporation laws throughout the country 

 is very desirable. Chartering corporations in one State, 

 where the laws are loose, and dictated to please the corpo- 

 rations, and then allowing them to do business in any State 

 or Territory contrary to the spirit of the laws of these, com- 

 peting unfairly with home companies, has been and is prolific 

 of great evil. 



A remedy for this state of affairs and a means of securing 

 uniformity of the organization of trusts and of maintaining 

 ample control over them may be provided. Our experience 

 with national banks alibrds us a clue to the solution of the 

 problem. 



Let Congress pass a law, — there is no constitutional bar- 

 rier in the way of such legislation, — providing, first, that 

 all common carriers of freight, intelligence or persons from 



