The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1908-02-04
PUBLIC OPINION
CORRECTS EVILS
Report of Bureau of Corpora
tons Presents Facts
MUCH SECRET WORK DONE
According To Law Results of Bureaus
Investigations Cannot Be Given
Out Except BY Authority
of the President.

Washington. February S.-Publie opin-
ion has been prompt and efficient in the
correction of commercial evils when those
evils are stated specifically. This is one
of the conclusion reached by Herbert
Knox Smith, commissioner of corpora
tions and expressed in the annual re-
port of the operations of the bureau of
corporations, made public today. Nat
urally, under present conditions, the
real power of public opinion reaches only
such cases as may be specifically
stated"
Thus" says Commissioner Smith, the
experience of the bureau seems to point
logically to the need for an extension
of such results by the creation of a gem
eral administrative system of supervision
of interstate corporations, which shall
give in substantially the same form as
is furnished now for few corpora
tons, the essential facts relating to all
the great interstate corporations Wheth-
er the system takes the form of a fed
eral license plan simple requirement
that interstate corporations shall make
reports and submit their books to a fed
eral bureau is of little consequence, so
long as the information necessary for
publicity is obtained.
1T is believed that the time is ripe for
such a system. The bureau has had in
ereasngly the voluntary cooperation and
assistance of most of the large corpor-
ations in the bureaus Investigations.
This assistance given by the leaders
of industry has been very encouraging
and especially in its Indication of the at
titude of many of the ablest men of the
country and the attitude of the public
at large toward the fundamental objects
for which this bureau was created.
There is no need that such federal
supervision should derogate from the
proper powers of the state. The BUSH
nesses of today are transacted under con-
ditions which, from a commercial stand
point, are purely national with no ref
erence to state lines, but the legal status
of these businesses is still eliminated al
most wholly by state statutes, dis
crepancy which has been the cause of
many existing evils. Corporate COM
merce as carried on by those great COM
panies whose operations substantially
constitute the whole problem before us,
is national and should be made national;
the control over them should, to some
extent, at least, be made also national.
1T is with such information as the
bureau of corporations is able under the
law to collect and publish that the great
corrective force of public opinion can be
intelligently and efficiently directed at
those Industrial evils that constitute the
most important of our present prob
lens.
corporate combination, as such, ap-
pears to be not only an economic neces-
sity, but also largely an accomplished
fact 1t is not the existence of individ-
ual power, but rather its misuse. that is
the real problem. The government should
direct its attention toward preventing
unfair methods and toward keeping open
the opportunities for competition in in
dustry"
Little idea of the accomplishments of
the bureau of corporations during the
fiscal year. ended June 80, last, is af-
forded by the report, for the reason that,
under the law the results achieved may
be made public only by the President
or through his express authority. Com
missioner Smith points out. however. that
the chief legal work of the bureau dur
ing the year consisted in aiding the law
officers of the government in preparing
and prosecuting indictments against the
oil trust for alleged offenses against the
Ellxins law determinations in railway
rates)
Commissioner Smith says he is con-
tinung the investigations already begun
into the Industries OF petroleum, TOBACCO
and steel Under re- buttons adopted by
the last Congress, the bureau also is
making Investigations into the opera
lions of the international Harvest COM
pany; into the cause of the higher price
of lumber with a view to developing any
combination that may exist; into the
causes of fluctuations in the price of
cotton and into patents granted to Off
GERS and employees of the United States.
An inquiry also is being conducted into
water transportation, both coastwise and
internal