Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1908-06-15
". J. BRYAN AT The conference
OF governors.
would Have no Neutral Ground TO
Shelter Predatory Corporations
From the Operations OF the Law,
Corporations Must be Amenpbje
to Authority.


called by the president, Mr.. Bryan
referred to the discussion about the
relative spheres of the nation and
the state and said that there is mo
twilight zone between the nation and
the state in which exploiting inter-
ests can take refuge from both" He
had in mind the constant ATTEMPTS of
predatory corporations to avoid ma
tional laws by an appeal to states
rights and to avoid state laws by an
appeal to national supremacy. Every
one who has tried to protect the pub
lie from the plundering that has been
carried on by monopolies knows how
the big corporations have played fast
and loose with both nation and state.
1t was for this reason that the
phrase, "twilight zone" struck such
responsive chord. The president
Immediately seized upon it and used
it to explain his position. The pres
dent said: Just word of what has
been called the twilight land be-
tween the powers of the federal and
state governments. My primary aim
in the legislation that l have advo-
Gated for the regulation of the great
corporations has been to provide some
effective popular sovereign for each
corporation. l do not wish to keep
this twilight land one of large and
vague boundaries, by judicial decis-
ion that in given case the state can
by other decisions that in practically
similar cases the nation can not act
either. | am trying to find out where
one or the other can act, so there
shall always be some sovereign power
| that on behalf of the people can hold
every big corporation, every big in
dividual, to an accountability so that
it's or his acts shall be beneficial to
the people as whole"
| However people may differ about
the methods employed by the chief
executive-and Mr.. Bryan has dis
sented from some of them-no one
can dispute the presidents state
ment that every corporation must be
amenable to some sovereign. 1t is
absurd to say that the laws can
create ticticious person, called a
corporation, and that the creature
can then defy it's creator and oppress
at will the people of the entire coun-
| try.
These corporations have controlled
national politics for years and re-
sent any interference with their
plans. They control politics in sew
eral states and are reaching out after
more. They subsidize newspapers
and these papers defame every SER
want of the people and eulogize every
official who betrays his constituents.
They contribute to the campaign
funds to debauch politics; they COR
rupt business methods and when
these corrupt methods are attacked
they hide behind honest wealth and
denounce all reform as an attack on
legitimate accumulations.
1t is time to eliminate the ''twi-
light zone" and hold to strict ac-
countability all the agencies created
! by the people. The game of hide
and seek must stop, and the nation
and the state, each in it's respective
sphere, must exercise its power to the
full, first, to make a private mon
opoly impossible, and second, to so
regulate quasi public corporations as
to make them subserve the purpose
for which they were created.