1903.] PATTERSON—THE PROBLEM OF THE TRUSTS. 23 
commerce only incidentally and indirectly. That judgment is 
unreversed and unshaken, and it is to-day the law of the land. 
In the past, the country has had to overcome, under conditions 
of inadequate transportation facilities, the disintegrating tendencies 
of the expansion of territory and the growth of population, but as 
the results of the triumph of the nation in the suppression of the 
Rebellion, and the development of means of transportation and 
communication, our perils are now those of governmental consoli- 
dation and not those of dissolution. The silver legislation, threat- 
ening a degradation of the standard of value; the income taxing 
law of 1894, unnecessarily vexatious and inquisitorial in its provis- 
ions and, by reason of its exemption of incomes less than $4,000 
in amount, unjust and unequal in its intended operation ; and the 
laws imposing taxes upon inheritances, increasing progressively in 
proportion to the amount of the distributive share and teaching the 
many to expect that the necessary expenditures of government will 
be borne by taxation to be levied on the few, are illustrations of 
_ the perils which may threaten the prosperity of the country. Any 
legislation which conflicts with the American doctrine that all men 
are equal before the law, and that equality of rights implies equality 
of obligations, and that subjects rights of property and freedom of 
contract to administrative control, is dangerous in a republic 
governed by universal suffrage. 
Every State should encourage the organization under proper 
conditions of manufacturing and trading corporations, and it 
should permit them to do any business that an individual may 
lawfully do. While a State should not undertake to guarantee to 
the public ‘‘in all particulars of responsibility and management ”’ 
the corporations organized under its authority, it should by con- 
ditions annexed to the grant of the charter protect intending and 
actual shareholders and creditors of the corporation, so far as can 
be done. It should prohibit and punish fraud in organization or 
administration. It should afford access to public records showing 
how the capital has been or is to be paid, and if paid in property, 
so describing and identifying that property that its value can be 
tested. It should require the publication at stated periods of bal- 
ance sheets stating the liabilities under the headings of ‘‘ shares,’’ 
‘bonds, ’’ and ‘‘ other indebtedness,’’ and the assets under the 
headings of ‘‘real estate and machinery at cost’’ less stated 
amounts charged off for depreciation, ‘‘cash,’’ ‘‘ debts collect- 
