Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1907-09-14
Attorney General Proposes to
Find Out if New Iowa Stat
utes Are Worth Anything
CORPORATIONS MUST BE GOOD
Effort Will Be Made to Enforce All
Laws-Recent Claim That Frater-
nal Insurance Companies Will Die
tate Next State Auditor Looked
Upon as a Huge joke.
specia1 TO Ttmes-Republlcan.

Specia1 TO Tfmes-Republican.
Des Moines, Sept. 14.-Several suits
involving the corporation laws of the
state of Iowa will be started before
great while by the attorney generals
office There are several purposes in
starting the suits. One is the all-suf-
ficient reason that there is evidence
that some laws are being broken. An
fother reason is the desire to know just
what efficiency and worth there is to
the corporation laws of the state, for
the fact is that scarcely one of the
more important corporation laws OF
the state has ever been tested in the
courts.
BY bringing test of these laws in
the courts at this time wherever there
the law will be brought out and it's
weakness uncovered, and when the
next legislature meets these weak
nesses can be corrected. The last
legislature passed number of cor
poration laws and there has been talk
from time to time that all the corpora
ton laws should be rewritten, the
work to be undertaken by commits
/ sion. 1t is considered reasonable.
, however, that there should be an at
tempt TO enforce the laws that are al
ready on the statute books and If there
is any rewriting to be done 1T can be
done much more intelligently after
that.
Another purpose of starting the
suits is of course to teach the corpor-
sations that they must respect and
! obey the laws of the state of Iowa. 1t
has been repeatedly claimed at the Of
flee of the secretary of state that there
were corporations doing business IN
the state that had never filed with the
secretary of state certified copies of
their articles of incorporation as re-
uuired by the Iowa statutes of COM
panies organized outside this state. 1t
is necessary that this filing be ac-
companied by a fee. The secretary OF
states office has labored under dis
advantage in that there is no means
at its disposal for ferreting out these
companies, but inquiries occasionally
disclose the fact that there are such.
The attempt will be made by the at
torney general to enforce all these
laws and thus bring to the attention
of the corporations the fact that they
must be respected. There will be no
wholesale filing of suits such as has
taken place in some states where hys-
ceeds in advertising the attorney gen
erals office, but too often is not fol-
lowed by real prosecution of viola
tions.
The recent declaration of F. B. korns
that the fraternal insurance men OF
Iowa propose to name the next stale
auditor or insurance commission Is
dwindling to less and less Importance.
1t was considered startling statement
at first. now it is laughed at. There
are something over 100000 fraternal in
surance policies outstanding in the
state. On an average there are two
policies to the person so that there
are about 100000 persons in the ira
ternal companies. OF these something
like half are democrats, which cuts
down the influence of united fraternals
in any one party at the primaries 10
100000 Of these in either party half
are standpatters and half progressives,
which cuts down the number to about
25. 900. One-third are women SO the
number is cut down to about $4,000.
At least two thirds of all the fraternal
men of the state are not in harmony
with Korns on insurance rates and be-
1ieve that the rates should be ade-
ouate to support the companies, SO
that there is left something like 5000
or 5000 that may possibly be subject
to the influence of Korns to some ex-
tent, but it is believed If search were
made it would be found that he
couldn't control all these. So out OF
a republican vote of 235,000 posslbly
5000 (to make a liberal estimate) or
one-forty-seventh of the party, is sub
iect to influence on the question. -.
In between times while he Is not en-
gagged in running the governors office,
Colonel Billy Coalson is regulating the
weather. Colonel Coalson has been at
the governors office since the early
ages. He has served under democrat
and republican alike for all shades and
colors of political belief and so has
his duties down to such fine point
that he can spare little time to make
weather. Colonel Coalson was re-
sponsible for the storm of last Sat
urday when hail something smaller
than water buckets fell in this city
and a cyclone demolished things at
Valley Junction. Colonel Coalson didn't
intend to make a cyclone. but overdid
it. He went away for few minutes
to attend to some duties and left the
machine He told everybody there was
to be a storm and everyone about the
state house got under cover before it
broke. Governor Cummins went to
Ames that day, but took the precau-
ton to get home before the storm. Col
onel Coalscn has predicted another