The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1899-09-26

State, contrary to public good.
II believe that these concurrent rem
edies will reach the difficulty, that the
people Of every State shall first de,
eide whether they want to create a
corporation; that they shall, secondly,
decide whether they want any outside
corporation to do business in the State,
and if so, upon what conditions, and,
thirdly, that Congress shall exercise
the right to place upon every corpora
ton doing business outside Of the State
in which it is organized such limita.
tions and restrictions and restrictions
as may be necessary for the protec
ton Of the public good.
Il am ready to adopt a platform for
the humiliation of trusts. One that /
suggest is this: That Congress should
pass a law providing that no corpora
ton organized in any State should do
business outside of the State in which
it is organized, until it receives from
some power created By Congress a Ii
cense authorizing it to do business out
side of it's own State. Now, If the
corporation must come to this body
created by Congress to cur permits
sion to do business outside the State,
then that license can be granted upon
conditions which will, in the first
place, prevent the watering Of stocks;
in the second place, prevent monopoly
IN any branch of business; and, third.
provide for publicity as to all of the
transactions and business Of the cor
poration.
IF this is uncor s5itusional and so
declared by the Supreme Court, 1 ara
in favor Of an amendment to the con
etitution that will give to Congress
power to destroy every trust in the
country. In my judgment, when
you take from monopoly the power to
issue watered stock you will go more
than half way towards destroying mo
nopoly in the United States.
You can provide for publicity that
annually or at such other times the
corporations shall make returns of It's
business or its earnings and will go
another long step toward the destruc
tion of the principle of monopoly. But
/ am not willing to stop there, and
therefore, as a third condition, l sug
gest that no license shall be granted
until the corporation shows that it has
not had any monopoly and is not at
tempting a monopoly of any branch
of industry or any article Of merchan-
disc, ard then provide that if the law
is violated the license can be revoked.
I do not believe in the government
giving privileges to be exercised by a
corporation without %reserving the right
to Withdraw them when those prlvi
leges become hurtful to the people
| Ny contention has been that we have
been placing the dollar above the man,
that we have been picking out favor
ties in government; that we have been
bestowing upon them special Erivileges
and every advantage we have given
them has been given them to the detri.
ment of other people. My contention
is that there is a vicions principle run
mig 5hrough the various policies which
we have been pursuing; that in cur
taxation We have been imposing upon
the great struggling masses the bur
dens of government, while We have
been voting the privileges to the PEG
pie who do not pay their share of the
expenses to the gCv5rnment.
Every unjust tax law is an indirect
form OF larceny, the speaker asserted.
An income tax, he believed, would
remedy another great evil. I have no
fear that any man By his own brain or
his own muscle will be able to c
a fortune so great as to be a menace to
the welfare of his fellowmen. Wh9n
God made man be placed a limit to
his existence, so that if he was a bad
man, he could not do harm long, but
when we made our man made man
Che. corporation) we raised the limit of
his ege. We did not given him e soul
and if he can avoid punishment in this
world, he need not worry about the
hereafter. l want to protest against
this doctrine that the trust is a natural
ou6grow5h of natural laws. II is not
true. The trust is the natural out
growth of unnatural conditions created
By man made laws"