Evening star., 1909-07-08
WAY TO CURB TRUSTS HELEN GOU[D'S HOME'
Wickersha Says Congress Many Friends and Destitute
Should Control Corporations Made Welcome There.
FAVORS A FEDERAL LAW RESORT OF THE CHILDREN
Regulate Those Engaged Invalid Soldiers Taken There After
terstate Commerce. the Spanish War
LIMIT POWERS OF THE STATES FORMERLY PAULDING MANOR
Is Much S Promote
Outside Their Boundaries Happiness of Mankind.
To Regulate Those Engaged in In
terstate Commerce.
LIMIT POWERS OF THE STATES
Their Charters to Be Vacated When
Majority of Stock Is Owned
Outside Their Boundaries.

| PADUCAH. KY, July S-Congress
should control the organization of corpora
tions doing an interstate business, ac-
| cording to an address delivered before
the State Bar Association by George w.
| Wickersham. Attorney General of the
| United States, last night. Mr. Wicker
sham treated the trust question as it ap-
pears to the present national administra-
tion, the address being notable chiefly for
| the recommendation that Congress should
enact a law providing for nationally ere
ated corporations to carry on interstate
commerce. Mr.. Wickersham sketched the
ways by which states may regulate the
| business of foreign corporations within
their boundaries. and advocated thnt the
license of any foreign corporation be va
Gated if 30 per cent of its stock was owned
| by any company, domestic or foreign, or
| If that amount became later SO owned.
| "Of course. many will object to the CEN
! tralizing tendency of a national law au-
| thorizing the formation of corporations
to carry on interstate business" said MIR.
| Wickersham, but. such a law seems to
me to be the inevitable result Of economic
conditions
Mr.. Wickersham said this would logical
ly follow the tariff tax on corporations.
He tried also to show the separate states
how they might control the business of
foreign corporations in their limits.
Standing of Corporations.
Dealing with the citizenship and stand
ing of corporations, Mr. Wickersham
quoted decisions to show that they were
not citizens in the meaning of the fed
eral constitutional requirements that cit
liens of each state should be entitled
to all the privileges and immunities of
citizens of the United States; that the
{ot4
corporation from continuing to do busi-
ness is but the correlative of its au-
thority to prevent such corporation from
coming into the state; that the state in
passing these questions might take
cognizance of acts done elsewhere.
The unlimited extent of the power of
the states recognized by the Supreme
Court" said Mr. Wickersham lis strik-
ingly illustrated by the decision in the
case of the Security Mutual Life InSur-
ance Company versus Prewitt, where the
constitutionality of statute of Ken
lucky was upheld.
THE result of this decision is to en-
able state to compel foreign corpora
| tion to refrain from resOrting to the
federal court in controversies brought by
or against 1T or else to cease to do busi-
ness within that state.
Dealing with the status of corpora
tions. Mr.. WickerSham said that they
were persons who could be deprived
of life, liberty or property only by due
process of law. He argued that the i'm
position of higher license fees on foreign
than on domestic corporations had been
declared void. He pointed out that in
view of the cases of the state of Arkan-
sas against the Hammond Packing Com
pany and others 1t might be safely as
serted that the only limitations on the
powers of the states to exclude foreign
corporations entirely from doing bust
ness within their territory, to pre-
scribe such conditions they might
deem proper to the carrying ON by them
of such business, We're:
THAT the regulations so prescribed
should not deprive the foreign corpora
ton of property without due process of
law or deny to them the equal protec-
ton of the laws; and. secondly that such
regulation shall not amount to an inter-
ference with interstate commerce or with
other business of federal nature
Specific Statute Requirements.
The Attorney General dealt with spe-
cific statute requirements of various
states as to capital increase of corpora
tions. the requirement by foreign cor
porations of stock of domestic public
utility corporations; the possession of
realty and other similar affairs.
Much legislation has been enacted in
various states," he said, for the purpose
of preventing trusts, pools and combina-
tions in restraint of trade. Such was the
law under consideration In Hammond
Packing Company VS.. Arkansas t212, L.
81 Many of these acts are long, involved
and aboundIng in adjectives. Some of
them have been more or less effective;
most of them have proved ineffective as
applied to foreign corporations.
1T has seemed to me that an effective
method of leeislating on this subject
would be to enact that no foreign cor
poration should be licensed to do bust
ness within state if 30 per centum of
its capital stock or upwards was owned
or held by any other corporation, do
meStic or foreign, and that if at any
time after obtaining such a license more
than 80 per centum of the capital stock
OF such corporation should be acquired
by another corporation the license should
be ipSo facto vacated.
THE device of the holding corporation
is the only thing which has made pos
si5lc the rapid growth of the great
trusts and monopolies, and a prohibition
such that stated would go far toward
their destruction"