San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-02-20
NO PRIVATE BUSINESS

d, IT measure proposed III INC Legislature
of Kansas should become law and ii
has every possibility OF so doing, there
will be an entering wedge to destroy pri-
waite business just as personal liberty and
sanctity of the home have finally suc-
stumbled to search and seizure without
Warrant.
, The Kansas measure is directed at cor
porations. 1t invades the corporation
much as the enforcement officer invades
the private home and should it be
adopted generally, would make it almost
impossible to do business.
This law in effect, provides that the
state shall be director eN-officio, in
every corporation licensed in Kansas and
that the state shall have the right
through a representative, to sit in at
every directors meeting OF every cor
poration. 1t shall have exactly the
same rights and privileges as any direc-
tor except the right to vote. No legis-
lation in years, is more drastic in its
provisions, say those who have examined
this act. While some state supervision
may be advisable for certain corpora
tons coming into close contact with the
public, vet no such wholesale and arbi-
rary regulation as this has ever been
proposed before.
! Every businessman knows that in the
Course of years business, firm or
Corporation has numberless matters OF
a private nature to discuss before its
directorate that it. does not care to have
The public know about. These matters
are in no wise crooked or illegal, but the
success of many business deal depends
entirely upon the nature of its execu-
ton. For instance, let us say that large
business interests decide to buy GER
tain block of real estate in certain
section OF San Antonio. They must
move with secrecy TO acquire options
at the market price of the property be-
cause once it becomes known that they
are after this acreage, single property
owner, by arbitrary and unreasonable
demands, could block the entire deal.
Yet imagine a petty state official sit
ting in at this meeting, tipping off a
San Antonio friend and perhaps entering
upon an undetermined deal himself with
associates, to buy portion of the acre
age ahead OF the corporation in order to
exact price.
This of course pre-supposes the Off
cial to be corrupt. Yet we know that
not all public servants are paragons of
virtue and we have known state secrets
to leak before. It requires only to re-
call the millions made and lost in stock
naanipulations during the war when
tip eminated from Washington from
source never disclosed that resulted in
one of the biggest stock scandals of
record.
If such law should become prevail
ent in the various states, an end would
come to corporations as business entities
Some other form OF doing business would
of necessity have to be devised. Under
existing laws, the state has power to
compel corporations to disclose data on
their books and to make other sworn
statements as to earnings and operations
But when the state proposes to put 2
minor official of unknown integrity into
the directors room of every corporation
in the state the limit has about boer
reached. It is tantamount to saving
that the state will assume the functions
OF private business whenever a set Of
individuals merge their interests and
capital into corporation. Such a law
certainly ought to cure all the evils Of
corporation business by killing the pa
tient. 1t is an old remedy but rather
hard on the patient.