The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1886-04-28
CORPORATIONS AND THE LAW

right to hire others to quit work, but it has
no right to compel those who do not want to
quit to stop work, or to compel those who do
not want to join this or that organization, to
join such organization. The rights are equal,
however unwise they may be in inaugural
ing strikes at time of great business depres-
sion, in order to accomplish things, though
good in themselves, yet impracticable, if not
in many cases impossible, by means that at
best, by inaugurating confusion and appre-
hension, indefinitely postpone the very ele-
ments of activity through which a condition
OF amelioration may come.
The right to strike by adult citizens has
become a very mania, that is reflected by
school children, who have no right beyond
what their parents choose to give them, and
the whole thing would be extremely ludic-
rous if it were less threatening to the peace and
well being OF the country. While there lis
an..undoubted right of citizens to quit work
when they choose, except where they have
made contracts to do otherwise, there is
an equal right Cor employers to discharge
whom they may fit under the same re-
strictiOn.
But there is a moral wrong involved in the
legal right to the exercise of this power, in
that the exercise OF the right results in
jur1ously and often disastrously upon others
many fold more than those who may be ex-
erclsing an individual right, and it is this
phase of the question, where many individ-
Uals combine their individual powers and
exercise them as unit, that requires legal
definition. For single individual to quit
work, or for single individual to receive
discharge, will only be injury to the two
| parties Immediately concerned, but when all
those employed in an entire branch of busi-
ness either strike or are locked out, there
comes an interference with the rights aud
prosperity of others not cognizant to the
trouble, and to that extent their action be-
comes public question requiring to be re-
conciled to public interests by law.
1t is notorious that people combine, as
they have right to combine and it is evil
dent they combine because there is a neces-
sity to combine But little would he left of
modern civilization were the right to COM
bine individual resources, of whatever kind,
withdrawn. This applies to combinations OF
capital in the first place, and to combina
the combination OF capital the combina-
ton of labor would be impossible. Capital
combines labor by bringing many laborers
together, and we regard it flying into the
face of forces as powerful gravitation to
attempt to escape the inevitable consequen e
of the cause of labor organization, and
thing, if attempted, that could only result
in destroying all corporate existence. 1t is
the duty of the law to recognize the forces
that underlie the activity of modern civil
izatien, and to make itself equal to them by
recognizing corporate rights as separate and
distinct from individual rights, and
to recognize what already exists
beyond any power of radical control, Ger
tain units of political and social life that,
however they may conflict with our past
conceptions, threaten the existence of the
present and future good order of society.
1t is to go step further and define the status
! of a corporation, whether of labor or capital,
in its relations to the whole OF society, and
define the status of the individual toward
| the corporation and toward society. The
ebulition of the present is too deep and pow
erful, and its consequences too widespread
and potential to be much longer ignored; and
| the person who ignores a condition so
marked with unrest and so potent with pos
! sibility, and so deep-rooted and funda-
mental, is blind to the perception of the COM
mOneSt things. 1t matters not whether the
! Knights succeed or fail in their present dis
quieting efforts. 1t is not question of the
Knights, although it has been made a lead
/ inn, Ix-f frhs II to of
responsibility that the public itself has raised
against Corporate power of any kind, whether
it be a telephone company or a railroad
company or an organization OF labor.
The question has been quietly growing for a
quarter of a century, and became leading
the moment il reached its development.
The system of competition mas passed its
poisoning period and has entered decline
it can not reverse. Capital no longer as
sures profit on its investment. Enterprise
that has developed a continent rich in re-
source, and that provided ready and open
field for individual enterprise, is now ham.
peIed by general presumption of those re-
sources that destroys the ability of the indi
vidual to readily change his position. In q
word, society is becoming fixed because
there is not room for indefinite expansion
True, there remain many things. No one
can foretell the leviathan enterprises that
remain for the future, provided society re
tains its order and stability, but in the
main, they will be enterprises requiring the
concentration of vast quantities of capita
and labor. 1t is notorious that each yea
makes it more and more impossible for mod
crate capital to accomplish a result Of
achieve an enterprise. Whether it be rail
: road, or even a steamship; cutting
channel to cover Sahara with water
or piercing the Andes to joiI
together two oceans, it requires vast organ
izations and the resources OF capital ant
labor of many men. That Mr.. Carnegie AM
; a strong labor organization have begun co
) operative enterprises isonly another instanc