The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-01-23
'Godfathsr of Trusts'' Talks of Combinations and Rights
 of the People PERSONS WHO ARE GUILTY SHOULD BE PUT IN JAIL MT. Dill Declares That Stockholders of Concern of Any Kind Should Not Be Made to Suffer From
 Wrongs.

lore n6 went on L16 peucQ Ul lHo CouiL ol error and appeal of the state of New Jer- sey. James B. Dill was known as .god- father of trusts" He was something more; he assisted at the birth and there- after stood for. counselled and watched over them. chiding them and chastlzing them. Because he has had 50 great measure of responsibility for them rep resentative of the International news ser vice went to him to ask:
 .'Since you know all about building this Frankenstein,' won't you tell us how to destroy it?'
 Judge Dill has blue eyes that twinkle. T won't be interviewed" he said T am on the bench. My usefulness is there, not in public prints. For seven years built up trusts. For five years I have been trying to correct the job"
 Then you say what In the final an- alysis is the most direct corrective you have arrived at?'
 Placing responsibility for violations of law upon the persons responsible. What happened to Morse and what happened to Walsh indicates the effective method of discouraging wrong-doing."
 Putting the responsible wrongdoers in 5ail?'' was inquired.
 Judge Dill nodded.
 ndNo u6VeI loOkeQ Wll0 pdIlence upon the hning of a corporation. Inhicting a fine as penalty is inflicting punishment on the innocent stockholders. Penalties should be laid upon persons responsible.
 Real Evil Is In Men.
 ''The real evil In aggregation of capital and in corporate and other combinations, as said before Oberlin college, lies in men, in character, not in these things. The trouble is persof,al.f That's why I just said that the penalty for wrongdoing should be personal.
 Some of these combinations are using their resources and their energies to ac- complish their own ends. without due re- gard to the rights of individuals or of the public. This they do naturally. Power always carries with it an fnstinctive de- sire to adopt the theory that might makes right Some of our foremost men are working upon that theory.
 The menace in our so-called prosperity today Is that in many instances the men among us who became powers-f1nancial, political, social-abuse their power The trouble is not with theories. It is not with forfns- It is concrete. The wrong is per- sonaI.
 A large part of our modern prosperity is to perilous extent bottomed upon fraud and sham. The unprecedented nat ural growth of the country, the result ing creation of immense private fortunes. the massing of great aggregations of can ital through industrial combinations and railroad mergers, all have tended to con- centrate attention upon the financial acnlevements and to put in the highest place In popular estimation captains of (yndustry and powerful financiers. { Disregard of Right.
 The effect upon these men themselves or turning their energies to the tremend- ous projects possible only in this coun try, mas been that they have come to dis regard the elementary principles of right and wrong in their business life.
 ne dummy director Of a great cor poratlop who dummyizes himself for na V who uses his position to control tba rss and disposition of other peoples money TOT personal gain Is in no position to crit- icise the clerk who falsifies the account or the employe who embezzles Yet we near or instances of men who have stolen millions having employees sent to jail who had taken only hundreds of dollars
 Whose fault Is this? It is ours. If ,s the fault of public opinion-yours ana mine-yours of me. mine or you: youra of all the rest. We must learn to recog- nfze graft and grafters, however respecf- able their disguise. and punish them. Punish them personally. not only with Imprisonment and nne, but with all tho scorn of society.
 The practice of doing or ascuescinR in the doing by men in syndicate or as members of a corporate Aggregation of acts which the individual would not do in his private life, upon the theory that syndicate corporate morality is one thing and individual morality is another, re- suits In the total suppression of individ- ual honesty and morality.'
 Judge Dills declared aversion to stock watering and excessive capitalization led him to make this point:
 "An effect of excessive capitalization and the attempt to pay dividends on such capitalization is Q tendency to create ar tificial earnings upon an artificial cap- ital, both by raising the price of the article produced and by the depreciation of the wages paid"
 His correctives for corporate excesses, oppression and illegalities arc publicity, uniform national laws for interpretations. honest promotion and indfviduai Integrity in members of a corporation. When they err he would like to see them held to account as for personal dereliction- and not let off by a fine on the corpora ton.
 "suppose the law Is such that this in- dividual penalty is difficult to placer" {was suggested.
 Then" he answered. 'lst us copy tho { English laws. They never have troubles with trusts such as we have, do they?"
 You must get great deay Of satisfac- tion out Of being Judge m corpora- tion caser' was suggested.
 He laughed and answered:
 '.The other day a lawyer said to me, Wasn't that good Argument put up to you?
 Tt was; replied. Tt reminded mo of the days when you and and some other lawyers used to gather round 2 table in downtown office ana deter mine line of argument to be adopted. II think 1t was you who once characterized one of those arguments by saying, That certainly will fool any judge"
 Having been on the inside they were hard to fooI"