The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-06-15
JUDGE GROSSCOP
ON CORPORATIONS
Man on Federal Bench Tells
the Credit Men of the Cor
poration Problem.
EVERY DAY PROPOSITION
COMMON SENSE VIEW OF THE
SITUATION.

Chicago, June 1.-THE National Credit
Mems association ended their three days
convention with a banquet tonight at the
Auditorium, at which Speaker Cannon of
the house of representatives and Judge
Peter 5. Grosscup were the principal
speakers. Judge Grosscup responded to
the toast, THE Every Day Business Man
and the Corporation Problem" He said
in part:
Not only is the corporation the legal
instrument through which is welded al
generations of AmericanS-it is the best
instrument vet discovered by which that
energy can be welded. Not only is the
corporation the medium through which
the wealth of the people works out this
ages industrial triumphs-it is the only
medium through which the people, while
working out their triumphs a whole,
can also work out, each for himself his
separate individual instinct for a personal
share in the triumphs achieved. Indeed,
what government is to mankind polite
ally organized, the corpora ton has be-
come to modern industry organized. And
1t is in the corporation, in this relation of
intermediary between those eking TO
own, and the property to be owned, that
the destnies of the future are the most
deeply bound up.
On General Ground.
Mr.. Roosevelt thus far has dealt with
the corporation problem as if the relation
of the corporation to the people was al
most wholly that of business rival to the
individual man-as if the relation between
the corporation and the individual man
was chiefly an arms length relation. And
l am one of those who believe that in
taking this attitude he wisely chose the
first step in any comprehensive program
for corporation reform. Indeed, before the
corporation as the best instrument for
welding the peoples energy, and work
nROnlpS
could be brought diStinctively into public
thought, it was indispenSa BILE that exist
ing corporations should be taught that
there is such thing as a peoples will
expressed in law. and that there is such
a thing as obedience by everybody to the
law.
Waiting for the Future.
That part Of the. road has now been
nearly traveled-that part of the work
has now been nearly done. What waits
us. IN that direction, is the duty of con-
tinued WatchfUlneSs. But the next great
distinctive step forward also waits for
us-the work of turning this preparation
into permanent deed-of putting into en-
during form, not only ideally. but actual
ly, in the corporation structure OF the fu-
ture, those practical principles of the
square deal, that Will transform the cor
poration into a permanently fit agency in
which to embody, and through which to
work out, our triumphant industrial life.
The people of America have shown that
reaches its best estate and the people,
there need be no gulf, for. in the last
analysis, it is the people who are building
up these Industrial triumphS, though In
uS-the peoples accommodating wealth. the
peoples thinking heads, the peoples busy
hands, the peoples throbbing, aspiring
hearts, and the corporation when il
reaches its best estate, will come to be
and trus\ed, only as the or
ganized form through which these heads,
and these hands, and these hearts. and
these accumulated savings accomplish
their work And when the days of the
corporations best estate have come it
will be recognized, also, to be as wicked
cause that enterprise is Incorporated. as
it is wicked now to incorporate crime,
merely because by so doing it may be
put beyond the reach of the law.
No Need of Wandering.
Nor is there any need that in our trav-
els toward corporation reform, we should !
wander much longer in the wilderness.
and present a concrete program-a pro-
gram short of which the friends of re-
form will not stop, and beyond which they
will not allow themselves to be carried. |
The conservative intelligence of the coun- |
try the real support of the great civic |
change through which we are going, has |
a right to know whittier ii is being led |
The interests of the business world re- |
where it stands-that it should be relieved |
from the apprehension that, somewhere |
in the dark, blow turks whose powers |
for mischief has not yet been measured. |
Besides. the cause of reform itself de- /
mands that the next step be promptly as |
well as inte1ligently taken; for in every /
like this, there is a moral mo-
mentum, that once halted and dissipated, |
disappears. The time is at hand l re- |
peat, for a concrete program.
And the time is here also. that the |
program be a national program-that |
some national political organization, en-
codying the nations best judgment on /
this subject, go to the people for a man.
late to form a corporation policy, for /
both the states and the nation, that will |
AIRY that judgment into execution. True. |
n some of the states the work of re- |
form has begun. But t would do little |
good to have reformed corporations in
and easy corporations of New Jersey re-
main. To be effectual- the reform must
De uniform throughout the nation and the
states.
1t is to the everyday business man,
hen, in touch with the business affairs
Of the country. that 1 bring this appeal.
The corporation problem, in the very
highest sense, is his problem; for Just
as it was the supposed business needs Of
The past that gave to the country its ex-
sting corporation policy. it ought to be
he clear business foresight Of today that
will lead in giving to the country a cor
)oratIon policy for the future. that men
10 not live by bread alone. will lift the
American spirit of enterprise to new lev
us of individual opportunity"