The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-02-23
ATTORNEY GENERAL MONNtTT.
The White Man a Burden of His Own at
Home

Home.
The principal address of the evening
was by Frank S. Monnett. attorney gen.
eral of Ohio, whose subject was The
States Control Over Corporations
"A corporation is peculiarly a Great
ure of the respective states, under con-
stitutional and legislative restrictions,
and therefore, being creatures of the
state, 1t is but a natural sequence
corollary to the proposition-that they
are subjects to state control
"It is the policy of the voters and
citizens of the state and of
the nation to. hold it's public serv-
ants. officers and agents to a strict ac-
counting of theirt trusts They will
neither tolerate textravagance in public
affairs nor ratify tfnequitable bargains.
They demand of the city councils, may
ors, general assemblies, economy, hon
est expenditure of the public funds and
reasonable and considerable contracts
for and on behalf of the people. Then
why not, with equal political sense, in
woke the strong arm of the state to
protect her citizens from the eXactings
and abuses and interest-gathering, cou-
pon-cutting bondholders and stock
watering of quasi-public corporations
and other corporate creatures of the
state that have abused the confidence
reposed in them and entrenched them
selves behind legal fictions to exact il
legal tribute. What shall be the rem
edy? YOU ask: what shall be the pun
ishment? you demand.
Il will not denounce the conduct of
certain corporations as vigorously as
did President Harrison one year ago to-
night at Chicago on a sim
liar occasion. Neither do I
yield to the cry of revenge of some
of the aggrieved; nor do l advocate re-
pudiation. or government ownership
under our present spoils system: but l
do say, with all the vigor of my soul,
that the state and the federal govern
ment should lay heavy hand upon ev-
cry such corporation that has repud-
lated and broken it's contract with its
sovereign by entering into combines,
by pooling to exact non-competitive
rates of freight and by rebating to ia
vorites and discriminating against the
inland cities and villages and levying
tribute upon state commerce in order to
favor Interstate commerce. l would
lay heavy hand upon every such cor
poration that violates the promises it
makes to the state, in exchange for the
right of eminent domain. to give the
citizens the rights of a common car
rier, equal freight rates and equal pas
senger rates to all and special favors to
none.
Abused It's Privileges.
IF an established railroad so far
abused its privileges as to bind prop
erty for 999 years by a mortgage at
per cent at 100000 per mile, when the
market or competitive value of these
bonds is but per cent, then let the
state protect the new competitive road
that will parallel at $4,000 per mile
upon per cent basis. If the holder
Il axrrir
cent was obliged to hear the call and
refund it at 212 or per cent, then let
the state through its sovereign powers
protect and foster competition in these
quasi-public corporations exercising
government franchises and powers I'M
til the holders of such investments
must also realize that they or their
vendors have been guilty of legal fraud
upon posterity. Compel such holder of
stock and bonds to submit to the same
treatment and the same competition to
which other dealers in commodities are
obliged to submit. But my hondholder
friend sends his lobbyist to your legs-
latiVe halls and to your hotels and
boarding houses and says, in seductive
language. will you deprive me of $4,000
of annual freight and passenger tolls
upon excessive valuation of watered
stock collected from your merchants
and farmers by this system OF compe-
tition? Your answer should be. will
your company exact war rates of in
terest from my constituents by nom
competition? You will hear of cry of
vested rights in this $4,000 of annual
dividend on watered stock taken from
a small county. Your answer should
be, my, farmers and neighbormen and
merchants have also vested rights in
their hard earned profits which must
also be protected. The conductor, the
telegraph operator the engineer, the
trackman and day laborer on this
same road must meet competition in
his labor, in his commodity. The mer-
chant, manufacturer and shipper must
meet competition in his commercial
world. Each and every citizen must
| sooner or later accommodate his in
vestments to the ever changing posi-
| ton oil society, whether it anects his
! profits or vested interests or not Why
! should not the investors in railroad