The Northwest worker. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1915-1917, 1916-04-06
THE CORPORATION SHOULD
BE SOCIAL AND COOPERATIVE

hSCSu, iCo supplies De WlCnnelO, anu
the use of money and of all other pub
lie services be denied. To give this
power to private greed, is as though
we were to license highwaymen at ev-
cry street corner, or crossroads, to
hold up the helpless passer-by. Such
surrender of the interests of it's citi-
zens, is not the part of an enlightened
government of free people; but repre-
sents, instead, the betrayal of the in
terests Of the people, by their public
servants, for the paltry dollars of
these corporations. 1t enslaves a peo-
pie, and besieges them, and cuts off
their means of life and supply, except
as they pay tribute to the corporations
to whom they and all their labor and
means of living are sold.
That these franchises and properties
should be reclaimed, goes without say
ing. No plea of "vested rights" can
be heard to the contrary; for the max
i'm is universal that private must
yield to public welfare; and obedient
to this maxim, the citizens property
was condemned, and even his home
taken from him, in the building of
these highways. Much less, then, in
the restoration to the people of these,
their inalienable rights, involving their
liberty and even their lives in the tru-
est sense, can any such plea avail the
corporations, whose possession has
never been anything but wrongful, and
who have already so largely profited
by that wrong.
The trust itself should, moreover,
be taken possession of and operated by
the people.
Had the corporation been made in
the beginning cooperative and public,
instead of an instrument of private
greed, then in the natural evolution
of industry it would have extended it
self as now, but all the benefits would
have gone to the people, and the cor
poration would have been their servant
instead of their master. But since
This wise and only rational course was
not adopted; and since, through our
mistake, and the fraud practiced upon
is, the corporations have seized upon
all the products of labor and supplies
of life of whole people, with the pow
9r to dictate absolute terms both to
the world of labor and of living-then
there remains now no other alternative
chan for the people themselves to take
] ossession Of these trusts, even as they
must take possession of their public
service corporations.
Were the corporation itself innocent
of any faint or fraud, it's development
nto the trust would, nevertheless,
make this right, and necessary, thing
to do. The control of a peoples pro-
ducts and supplies, like their liberties
or their lives, cannot be bartered or
given away; and were they voluntar-
ily to make such surrender, they must
yet have the right to repudiate the
folly upon coming to their senses.
The very nature of the rights parted
with raises the presumption, not to be
rebutted, that they were ignorant of
the nature of their act
But the corporation has not been in
nocent Of the faint of fraud. On the
contrary, it has been the creature of
corruption and fraud from the very
beginning. The lobbyists of these
corporations have filled every legisla-
live body; and their agents have mas
queraded as the servants of the peo-
pie, while building up the power and
wealth of the corporations, until this
has reached the point where trusts
are possible.
emil Seidel, Monroe, April 100