Martinsburg statesman-democrat. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1906-1921, 1911-11-03
HouIn Cure Irust Evils.

Detroit, Mich, Oct. George +
Miller sends the following from Sea
Girt, n. j., to the Detroit News:
If Gov. Woodrow Wilson ever be-
comes President of the United States
his message on the subject Of lrus
busting will come to congress with TN
decisive emphasis of the rifle shots
which echo through his library from
the range as you sit in conversation
with him in the state executive sum
mer home here. They will if the gov
ernor retains the opinions he now
holds on the illegal things done by the
people characterized by Mr.. Roosevelt
as malefactors of great wealth.
Governor Wilson is no hopeless de-
spondent. He disagrees utterly with
those who believe the law cannot e
made to reach such as seek to adjust
the business machinery of this coun-
try so that all the wealth will fall into
few hoppers. His ideas are sharply
defined ard his plans simplicity Itself
He would send vioators Of the la "
TO jail.
That is the whole Of the antidote he
prescribes. Fines, he says, place too
much OF the burden of the punishment
upon the innocent And he SCOTS ct
the idea that the guilty cannot be de-
tected and convicted.
"The managers Of corporations
themselves always know the men how
originated the acts charged against
them as done in contravention of the
law; is thee no means by which their
names may be disclosed to the officers
of justice? Every act, every policy in
the conduct of the affairs of corpo-
ration originates with some particular
officer, committee or board. The OIL
Ger, the committee, the board ordering
an act or originating policy contrary
to the law, or intended to neutralize
or contravene it, is serious offender
against society and must oe punished
if our Institutions are to stand.
SIT is neither sensible nor effective
to attempt to punish the corporation,
We do not indict the gun, but the man
behind the gun. 1t is a fatuous and
unnecessary fiction to treat Corpora
tion as in all respects a legal person.
TO control such of its acts as are
gainst public policy we must cease to
deal with it by means of the law as If
it were only single individual, a re-
sponsible individual, and must handle
il for what it is an artincal agency.
You cannot punish corporation.
Fines fall upon the wrong persons
and more heavily upon the innocent
than the guilty. Those who know |
nothing whatever of the otiense for |
which the fine is Inflicted must pay as |
well as those who originated and car
RED through the Illegal act. So the
real punishment falls upon the stoc5-
holders and the customers.
"If you will but put one or two con-
splcuous dummies into the peniten-
tiary there will be no more dummies
for hire. You can stop the traffic in
dummies, and then when the idea has
taken root in the corporate mind that
dummies will he confiscated the GUS
tom of the business will change. Mod
ern business enterprise makes the cor
porations indispensable, None Of us,
| take it, has any quarrel with bus'-
ness success, but all Of us orght to
have an irreconciiable quarrel with
business lawlessness. AS | told the |
lawyers of the American Bar Associa |
lion in an address last year, corpora
tons do not do wrong, individuals do |
wrong. When we stop that wrong
doing we have taken from the corpora
ton all the power of evil of which the
people so justly complain"