The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1905-02-11
Effect of Corporation Policy
Described by GrOSScup
HOW INDUSTRIES RULED
Tendency of Change from Individual
Ownership to Corporation Control
Is to Make Americans
Nation Of Dependents.

JuNE6 Eeter >. GfOSSCup OF 1ulcdso
presents in the February McClures a
new phase of the striking change from
individual ownership Of property to
corporation control that has been in
progress in this country during the last
twenty-five years. The following ex-
tracts are from his article, entitled
How to Save the Corporations"
THE effect OF the corporation under
the prevailing policy Of the free, go-as-
you-please method Of organization and
management has been to drive the bulk
of our people other than farmers out Of
property ownership, and II allowed to
10 on as at present it win keep them
out When the individual proprietor Of
the past sells out his business to the
corporation he does not reinyest his
capital In his old line of business. He
puts it In the bank or in some bond
When the workman has got together
some savings be does not become pro
prietor or part proprietor. lie spends II
or puts it In the bank. TO men like
these no kind of active investment
practically considered is left open. The
Industries are now dominated by the
corporation, and proprietorship IN the
corporation has come to be for those
only who are experienced in corporate
ways or who are willing to take a
chance at the corporate wheel. And
thus it happens that just at this mo-
ment we are in the midst of sweep of
events that unless arrested and turned
to a different account will transform
this country from a nation whose prop
erty is within the proprietorship Of the
people at large to a nation whose in
dustrial property so far as active pro-
prietorship goes will be largely in the
hands of a few skilled or fortunate so
called captains Of industry and their
lieutenants."
If this tendency is not stopped we
shall become "a nation Of dependents,
declares Judge Grosscup, and he would
stop 1t by federal control OF corpora
tons, the excelsior Of stock Jobbing and
water logged concerns and an employ
ees' profit sharing system.
"The transformation Of the owner
ship Of a countrys industrial property
from its people generally to few of
its people only reaches the bedrock Of
social and moral forces on which alone
the whole structure Of republican insti
tutions rests; for under such conditions
instead Of depending each On himself
and his own intelligence chiefly for sue
cess, the great bulk of our people in
creasingly will become dependents up-
on others. Those who possess inyesti
bic means viii come to rely solely up
on the great financial institutions and
those who possess nothing but capac
ity for labor upon the great organiza
tons of labor. That is paternalism; pa
ternalism in almost ifs final form; the
paternalism that will eventually divide
the country into two hostile camps, the
camp of those who have and the camp
OF those who have not; the paternalism
that speedily descends into actual state
socialism or a dry rotted citizenship as
nerveless and squalid as state social
ism.
Here, then III our own day and at
this early hour Of the day IS the part
ing Of the ways. Ahead lies the road to
paternalism. TO the left is the open
road to state socialism. They look now
ike distinct ways, these two roads
over bogs and precipiccs all their own
But little way ahead, within the dis
lance that any clear eye can carry. the
two roads sect. For let 1t not be for
gotten by those who preach the SO
called rights Of industrial liberty that
the out and ont Socialists and radical
labor men are not the only influences
that are pushing our country 70 the
edge OF the socialistic precipice These
have allies. and the ally on which they
most rely and justifiably rely are Just
those men who. regardless OF all con-
sideratio other than those Of money
and power greed, are launching the dis
honest corporate contrivanees that an
der our existing corporation policy OBJ
tain without hindrance the credit and
sanction OF the governments great
seal.
1t is only by turn to the right by
what may seem to some d sharp turn
that our one safe pathway forward
will be found That way lies over high
ground, individual opportunity the op-
portunity. actual as well as in theory
to each individual to participate III the
proprietorship Of the country That
ground is in its best and highest sense
republican ground TO gain that ground
the paramount problem is not how 70
stop the growth OF property and the
building up Of wealth. but how to man
age it so that every species Of property,
like a heaIthful growing tree, will
spread IFS roots deeply and widely IN
the soil Of popular proprietorship,
The paramount problem Is not how to
crush or hawk at or hamper the corpo-
ration merely because it is a corpora
stDr. bs34 hatx- "a r,,af-.e ff,iet navy form