Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1907-04-04
JUDGE GROSSCUP DISCUSSES THE ISSUE OF
CORPORATIONS VS.. PEOPLE TO FIRST VOTERS
Makes Nae Address In New York What He Considers eBunq Issues of the
Hour How TO Control Great Corporations Which Amas CalOssl Fortunes For
Their Mpula on Money Furnished by the People, Who Receive No Benefit


New York, April q .-Judge Peter S.
Grosscup of Chicago addressed a
meeting of first voters" at Cooper
Union this evening. The meeting was
under the auspices of the Peoples
institute and was attended by large
number of young men. SZ.-->,.,.-s,s
Judge Grosscup spoke in part as
follows: II. y
'.Mr Ryan is reported to have said
a few days ago that the railroads of
the country were owned by the peo-
pie of the country. In large sense
that is true. The bonds that have
built and equipped the railroads are
owned by the people in considerable
amounts. The people own, too, the
great bulk of the wealth in the form
of deposits in banks, insurance COM
panies and the like that is largely
utilized by railroad owners, in the
way Of loans, to carry their securities.
But neither in the railroad world, nor
the corporation world generally, have
the people obtained any real part in
the power and advantage that goes
with actual proprietorship. The hand
may be the hand of Esau, but the
voice is the voice of Jacob And it is
upon this great fact--the ninety and
nine furnishing the means, but practi-
cally deprived Of participating in the
power and. advantage of the country's
Incorporated property-that the great
questions of our future hinge.
! Governments monopolized by the
few have always been denounced as
oligarchies. It made no difference
that the soldiers who defended such
governments came from the ranks of
the people, or that the means that
sustained it were the savings of the
people-the government was none the
less an oligarchy so long as the middle
man, making up the body of its peo-
pie, was excluded from part and par
Gel in the actual power welded. And
the greatest chapter in the history of
the human race is. not that which tells
of the periods Of greatest material
but that which tells of the struggle of
the individual man tosopen to himself
the doors of power, and of its success.
Every step FROM oligarchy toward
democracy, in that greatsstruggle, was
a step forward. Every step in our III
tiustrial life, from individual industry
owned by the people to corporate in
dustries owned by the few, has been
a step backward. 1T is these back
ward steps that nnust be arrested.
Can they be arrested? Can the causes
that have been making them backward
steps be turned forward; so that here,
as in the transformation from oil
garchy to democracy in the world of
political government, the individual
middle American, made secure of
bread and shelter, education and high
er wages, may obtain at the same time
an open door to an aspiring mans
place and part in the great new indus
trial life that surrounds him? Upon
the answer to that question it is, 1 re-
peat, that the future of the country
hinges.
For my part, I believe that the
Transformation can abe brought about.
The real question is not SO much,
can it be done as how shall it be done;
how shall we set about this work of
Transforming the now great life from
an industrial oligarchy to an industrial
democracy?
Not by standing pat on CON
ditions as they exist, leaving it to
time to work out the problem. Time
works wonders. But there are times
also that press for action; and we
witness, as we now witness, the great
new industrial life, created by this
generation of Americans, going almost
completely under corporate control;
when we realize. as we realize now
that corporate control is, in too many
instances, not control according It'd
4 any principles of good faith, but con
troll according to the will and personal
Interest Of the men into whose hands
the corporation has fallen; when IT il
called to our attention, as 1T is almost
every day now. that the corporation ID
not industry organized as it should
be, in the interest Of the public, and
Of the individual men and women
whose lives and fortunes are bound
up in i, but is a shell merely, behind
whose walls any kind Of game is per
Inissible; when we see vast fortunes
transferred in an hour from the treas
uries Of the corporations to the peck
cts Of individuals; when he see the
4 state and the nation in the miserable
plight OF having no power to prevent
onIy power to lock the stable door