The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-02-04

commerce and human need, which is
the source of all value, demanded an
increase in their volume, the partner
ship relation was found unequal to adj
equate production and distribution, the
joint stock company was organized, and
soon, by but little transformation, the
corporation appeared. Here was a
great expansion of organization, a
more extensive combination, the control
of vastly more capital, .She exercise of
increased power. Surely If the partner
ship was formidable. if it implied power
for good and for evil, and if curbing the
latter required legal limitations, this
giant had become a monster in the cor
porate form. The partnership carried
individual responsibility. Each mem
Der of the firm was responsible. But
the corporation was human selfishness
organized to avoid individual respon-
sibility. The corporate stakeholder was
trustor, the corporation was his trus-
tee, and so the trust relation was es-
tablished in a form to which no law of
natural persons applied. The corpora
ton was organization and power in
formidable degree. But it's value and
its danger were both seen The ques-
ton was how to limit and curb the
one without destroying the other. I'm
mediately began the growth of that
great body of corporation law, which
has kept pace with every advance of
corporate power. 1t was soon seen that
corporate energy was equal to tasks
that were beyond the individual. impos
sible to the partnership. The increasing
needs of civilization cried for more. and
the demand pressed upon production.
transportation. and exchange for facil
ity that only corporate power was great
enough to supply. But wherever that
power was planted it was hedged about
by the developing system of the law of
corporations. To build railways it was
essential that corporations should use
the right of eminent domain, an attri-
butte of sovereignty. The use was
granted, but the law balanced this
power by giving to the corporation en-
joying it a quasi public character, sub
ject to something more than the law of
common carriers. Upon that founda-
ton has been built the still unfinished
system of the regulation of railways
by public law. 1t is far cry back to
the laying of the first mile of steam
railway track in this country. We have
now more than half of the railway
mileage of the world, and if the law
had not kept pace with this construc-
respect as they were in 1927, the rail-
way corporations would be monsters of
oppression instead of being, as they
are, the instruments of progress and
subordinated to the convenience of the
people.
When given the right of eminent do
main and the power to compel an
owner of realty to sell it for a right
of way at a price not fixed by himself,
railroads were denounced as the assas-
sins of liberty, the destroyers of the re-
public. But they proved to be neither.
Every addition to their power was fol-
lowed by its appropriate check. Cor
porate power and legal curb have gone
on growing together until we have the
best and most extensive system of rail-
roads in the world, their use is enjoyed
by the people at the lowest rates in the
world, and their labor is paid the high
est wages in the world. Liberty is still
unfettered and the republic survives
Later it may be of value and encour-
agement to consider the further cor
porate evolution into the modern trust