The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-11-05

going into the treasury of the company. This Is really swindle, because the investors all suppose that all their money Is going in to benefit the com pany and assist its development. = Ways of Eluding C0htracts and Penal.
 ties.
 In doing business with the individ- ua1. as in the olden ;:me, conditions were better than today, provided the man was honest. If you reached an understanding with John Smith, a bus- mess man of good reputation, he was apt to live up to his word; but if you make verbal agreement with Pres- ident Smith, of the Smith Company, and later somebody in the company wishes to back out of it. you are told that the Board of Directors has failed to con- firm the tentative understanding you had with MT. Smith, and that 1t rec ognizes no agreements not properly reduced to writing and witnessed. The personality that one used to depend up- on is gone in the case of the company.
 Again, the Smith Company will com init what is virtually perjury, where John Smith would be afraid to do such a thing. When John Smith makes one return of his assets to tho insurance i company and a different statement to the[ tax assessor. there Is a way of punishing him, if the duplicity comes to light. But when the treasurer or statement to the assessors, and the secretary of the company makes dif- ferent statement to the underwriters, 1t is easy to under-state in one case and over State in the other without per- hitting case of perjury, which would hold, if the differing statements had been made by the same individual.
 If the General Slocomb" had been company. that individual would have been expiating his crime of wholesale manslaughter in prison; the com pany went free.
 hnI cd supply of New York City. and let the poor swelter, while those who could do so paid double price for this neces. sity. he would have been driven out or pany that did this exists. and most Gothamites still buy its Ice. No mark ed resentment is felt, because such things are expected of stock companies, which rarely fail to squeeze the pub lie when they get a chance.
 View the stock company as you Will. big or little, capitalized or non- capital ized, there is no getting away from the is that 1t affords opportunity for over reaching somebody, or. in plain words for legalized swindling of some por- tion or the public. In the exact words the president of large stock com; pany, That is what the public is for"
 In closing. it is the proper thing to present some remedy for the evils o' stock SW1ndllnS. mere Woulu seeh' at first sight. to be but two remedies possible.
 First-To stop the forming of stock com anies. and to cancel the charters of those that exist.
 Second--To reform the laws, so as to regulate stock companies and produce conditions tending to the conduct of honest business.
 The first is entirely too drastic to receive consideration. The trouble with the second is to frame legislative bills which will check the evils cited without hampering legitimate busi- ness. When such bills are presented to a legislature, they are practically sure to be so amended that, if passed, they utterly fail of the original object.
 What then can be done? There Is another remedy within the reach of all of us. Let us make stock swindling odious. and class the man who de- frauds others in this way as common thief.