No. 4.] TRUSTS AND THE FARMERS. 203 



one State to another must receive their charters from the 

 national government ; providing, secondly, that a corpora- 

 tion whose product equals fifty per cent of any product 

 produced in the country may receive a charter from the 

 national government permitting it to do business anywhere 

 in the country under certain proper conditions ; providing, 

 thirdly, that a tax, sufficiently high to prohibit their forma- 

 tion, be levied upon all corporations whose product equals 

 fifty per cent of the total of any product produced in the 

 country, if, refusing to get a national charter, they should 

 organize under a State law and receive a State charter. 



Such a law would put all trusts directly under the super- 

 vision of the general government, and subject them to a 

 power capable of controlling them. It would put an end 

 to New Jersey's lucrative business of furnishing charters to 

 corporations. A company doing business wholly within a 

 State could still get a State charter ; if such corporations 

 should abuse their powers, the State could easily discipline 

 them. 



Experience has shown that a gigantic monopolistic cor- 

 poration may acquire such power as to defy a town, a 

 county, a city, — such power as to control a State, even, 

 throuach means at its own command. But to control Con- 

 necticut, or New Jersey, or some single State, is much more 

 simple than to control the United States. 



It is very probable that seventy millions of j)eople, rep- 

 resented in Congress, supreme court and the executive de- 

 partment, supported by an army and navy, can control a 

 sugar trust, a Standard Oil Company and any and all the 

 other corporations. It is well within their power to pass 

 and enforce laws compelling corporations to respect and 

 obey the State ; to look well after the interests of all the 

 stockholders, of their employees, of their customers and of 

 the community ; to make public their doings ; to abstain 

 from stock watering ; to pay for the use of franchises ; to 

 maintain their own independence of any and all other cor- 

 porations ; to pay their fair and full share of taxation. 



This problem of the trusts is a new one. The people are 

 just beginning to arouse themselves to a serious attempt to 

 solve it. Public opinion and sentiment are shaping them- 



