The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-01-27
Mot Going
 To The Dogs''
Says Solicitor General Leh- mann-Unfounded Wave
 of PeSsilnisna

Washington, Jan 27-'"The country is not going to the dogs" might be called the text of sermon on pres ent conditions delivered the other day to reporter from the United Press, by Frederick W. Lehman. solicitor general of the United States and one of the most brilliant and progressive legal minds in the Taft cabinet. Leh- mann had been asked if the activities of the government in prosecuting cor norations under the Sherman law, and the movement in many States for pop ular government, were not bound to produce hard times.
 Tt is the fashion now for business men to view conditions with alarm, ' he replied. "A sort of contagious pessin1ism has swept the country, but there is small foundation for It."
 As a humorous illustration of his point he read a letter which he had just received from a bank of which he is a stockho-der. But instead of starting with the first word, he read the last paragraphs first and saved the first sentence for the end. The latter part of the letter bewailed the tottering financial conditions of the country and looked to the future with gloomy forebodings. The first sen check to cover the regular semi-an- nuai dividend and a, two per cent. ad- ditional dividend.
 That bank,'' he continued, "is mak- ing money at the rate of 12 per cent. a year, and yet the officers complain of business. But what is true of it is largely true of the very corpora tions whose officers are prophesying panic and warning against the con sequences of continual governmen' al interference with business. The country is prospering, but it is now fashionable to complain.
 We don't have to go very far back in our history to find another period when it was the fashion of business to proclaim that the incroaching of government upon corporations was That was when the agitation of the grangers brought about the first state laws regulating railroad rates.
 '"The idea that the public might have something to say about what a railroad could charge for it's services was proclaimed a dangerous, confisca- tory, unconstitutional, revolutionary doctrine. Yet the laws were passed, and the Supreme Court upheld them, stating that the laws has as much constitutional right to regulate rail- road rates as the District of Colum.. bia had to regulate the charges of ferries, cabs and chimney sweeps.
 ''The first granger laws were pass ed in 1872. Bye and bye the railroads forgot their hurt, and I venture to say the world never saw such rail road expansion and prosperity as oc- cured in this country after regulation laws were on the statute books.
 
 government aggression upon business results because men lose sight of the pub ic nature of a corporation. Orig inally when corporation charters were granted by act of Congress it was ap- parent that the people were simply delegating individuals to perform a public service. And of course they have the fundamental right to regu- late the corpora tion in the perfOr- mance of the service.
 But nowadays when a corporation is formed in a, private office by a few scratches of a pen the incorporators forget the public nature of their cor poration and regard it as none of the public's business what the corporation does. so long as it does not violate the laws This is a ia SC idea of the theory of a corporation.
 '"The Supreme Court decision which made clear the constitutional right of states and the federal government to regulate railroads, made 1t plain that the government has equally good right to regulate any corporation, whether engaged in the business of transportation or any other service. The day will come, I think, when the people will exercise this right, though the law makers have not yet seen fit to extend government supervision be- yond transportation corporations.