Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1886-02-09

But the CROWN OF perWhnoht invest
ment is not the only change which has
taken place. Business investments are
not merely large, they are also concen-
trated under the management Of few
men. The individual pieces of capital
are no longer independent, any more than
the individual laborers. Instead Of a
number OF separate tools we have q COM
plicated piece Of machinery. Instead of
number OF separate workshops we have
large factory. Instead Of number Of
local roads we have large trunk-line of
railway.
The ioint-stock company, or corpora
ton with limited liabilities, was found
the most efficient means for securing this
concentration of management OF the cap
ital Of many individual owners. At the
very outset 1t was felt to be dangerous;
but IL was also found to be necessity.
1 The states and countries whose laws ia
vored the formation of corporations ad-
yanced industrally, while others fell be-
] hind. The result is, that the system has
/ been universally adopted. About quar-
ter OF the wealth of the United States, or
half It's permanent Investment, Is now
held by corporations.
! The effect has been to put the control
J VI lHuul vi Oul luUuNllltb lulO
! the hands of few men, and to
diminish or destroy the chance for the
workman to become an independ-
ent employer Of his own labor. 1t has
! fostered inequalities of power more than
inequalities Of wealth. There was u
time, not so very long ago, when the
workman who had saved a few hundred
dollars might buy a modest outfit and set
49,. " l.aaf &c.. Il IL n
unite his own capital with his own la
\ Dor, and be, in one sense, independent.
Every year this is becoming harder and
harder. The skillful machinist cannot
! lay up money enough to control the vast
machinery necessary to make him indie
| pendent. II he invests his savings in the
stock Of the company for which he
works, he may share in the profits of his
own labor, but he does not share in its
management. John Smith as stock
holder is an entirely distinct person from
John Smith as 4 machinist and the two
can deal with one another only through
| the intervention of the manager who
represents the one and controls the other.
THE MOST SERIOUS EVIL OF CORPORATE
OWNERSHIP.
This absence of any personal relation
between stockholders and employees is
! probably the most serious evil connected
with corporate ownership. 1t may some
times happen tina. the investors as body
viii sympathize with the laborers as u
body, and yet be forced into an attitude
of opposition by the conduct OF the man
ayers, More often such sympathy will
fail to come into play at all. The law of
limited liability is made to shut out
moral responsibilities as well as legal
ones. The stakeholder is liable to the
extent of his holding; beyond that he
too often troubles himself not whit
about the duties of the concern. The
act exempting his pocket from further
| liabilities Is made to exempt his con-
science also.
The case Is especially bad when the
stockholders of concern live in one To-
cality, its employees in another and its
customers in still another A conflict of
local interest Is created involving the
same dangers as the absenteeism of Irish
landlords. The worst case of all-unfor-
| tunately by no means Tare-is where a
corporation is run in the interest of it's
managers, independent alike of stock
| holders, employees or customers. Where
q concern is honestly managed with a
\ view to the personal interest of the stock
I holders the policy adopted win generally
/ be good for the permanent interest of en-
/ ployes and customers, however much
their temporary interests may seem
! to diyerge. But the interests
of an inside ring are almost always
opposed to the permanent interests of
the property, and involve harm and
danger in every direction. In our anxiety
IN faritffuFa IN,
have failed to provide safeguards against
corporate mismanagement. We have
allowed irresponsible borrowing, ques-
tionable contracts, evasiye and even
fraudulent bookkeeping; and we are paw
ing the penalty. Probably three quarters
of the popular hatred of corporations
have been due to acts which hurt the
stockholders as much as anybody else.
Thus, while the existence Of large per-
manent investments made labor and
capital more and more dependent npon
one another, the way in which these in
vestments were owned and managed
tended to separate lnborers and capital
lists more and more completely.
WHERE LABoRERs HAVE THE ADVANTAGE.
The consumers were the persons who
got the most constant benefit from all
these changes; and the laborers, consum-
ing as they do SO large part of the
products OF Industry, were thus enabled
to gain in material comfort. But in
their capacity as laborers they lost power
and independence; and what they lost in
power the managers gained The reason
Is not difficult to find. "The arrange
ments ofmodern society," says Mr.. Jevons
In his excellent chapter ON The Law of In
dustrial Conspiracy, "are based npon the
assumption that individuals will act as in
dividuals.' This is generally true; but
as regards corporations it does not hold
good. Corporations are organized on the
assumption that the individual stock
holders can not and win not act as indi-
viduals. The manager Of such corpora
ton represents united power, at once
TOO strong and too weak for the best in
terests OF the community. II he is bad
man, he Is strong enough to pursue a
short-sighted policy. II he is a good
man, he is generally not strong enough to
prevent rival managers from forcing such
policy upon him at times, against his
VIII. In either case the workman is
likely to suffer.
REASON FOR PREVIOUS LABOR FAILURES.