Evening star., 1936-02-04
l. s. CORPORATE
LAW IS PROPOSED
Senator 0'Mahoney Details
Federal Plan in Radio
/ Forum Address.


dress in the National Radio Forum.
arranged by The Star and broadcast
on a coast-to-coast network by the
National Broadcasting Co.
Every State has a corporation
law" he said. Corporations are the
creatures of the people. but in our
economic system we have permitted
them to take into their own hands
the direction Of our very lives"
OMahoney declared bill he has
pending would require a corporation
undertaking Ito carry on commerce
with foreign nations or among States,
to do so under Federal rather than
o State charter.
Many of these corporations are
more powerful than the States from
which they derived their income" he
said Some of them have more en-
ployes than many States have in
habitants. Some have assets and in
comes greater than the assets and
incomes of many States and most
cities
Text of Address.
! The text of Senator O'Mahoney's adj
dress follows:
In beginning this explanation of
the measure which / nave introduced
In the Senate to provide national char
tiers for national commerce, let me say
Ia the first place. as plainly and as
clearly as may be- that it is not in any
degree similar to the N. r. A. Though
nit ornhlpn1
which the N. R. A. dealt it approaches
that problem from an altogether diff
ferent angle.
II do not propose Government con-
troll or regulation of industry in the
sense that any bureau or commission
should be empowered to regulate and
control private business. propose to
set industry free I propose to estab-
lish system. long overdue, which will
enable commerce and industry to de-
velop without bureaucratic interfer-
ence upon the one hand and. upon the
other. without that far destructive in
reference which comes from the
monopoliStic methods which have
brought about in the United States the
most amazing concentration of wealth
and economic power that has probably
ever been tolerated upon the face of
the globe.
There can be no proper conSidera-
tion of this problem unless the mind
understands and accepts the funda-
mental facts which constitute it. Let
me ask you, therefore. if you do me
the honor to listen to this discussion,
to take the trouble to write down at
this moment, If you will, two primary
facts-facts, not opinions-which ex-
plain better than thousand speeches
could, what the trouble is with the
United States at the present moment
Conditions in 1929 Cited.
"In 1929. before We had really ex-
perienced what we called the depres-
sion, 100000 American families
families. not individuals-had incomes
Of less than a thousand dollars a year.
Six million families at the height OF
our supposed prosperity were in such
q desperate economic situation that
they we're compelled to subsist upon
an income of less than $25 week per
family.
Now the second item. In 1882, 392,-
0D0 corporations fled income tax re-
turns with the United States Bureau of
Internal Revenue The total assets re-
ported by these corporations amounted
to more than $3.50, ,00O, 900 900. More
than SO per cent of those assets thus
reported by $4,000 corporations were
owned by only 618 corporations. or less
than f1ve-tenths of l per cent of the
total number in the United States
making tax returns that year.
There can be no dispute about these
facts. Appalling poverty at one end of
the scale, appalling wealth at the
other; that was the economic picture
of America before the crash. I do not
attempt to place the blame for this
condition upon any individual or group.
i condemn no one. I only know that
the situation thus described constitutes
the problem America must solve if it is
to endure as free nation.
That unemployment and the high
cost of government are the two ques-
tions which most engage the public
mind at this moment none, I'm sure,
will deny. 1t is my contention that
they are both the direct result of the
failure Of Congress to exert the powers
given to it by the Constitution of the
United States to regulate commerce
among the States, and I have offered
this bill in the confident belief that it
affords the basis upon which we may
build an economic order in which in
creasing production and increasing
employment will go hand In hand with
economy in government.
No Trouble With Constitution.
1--WE hear much talk these days
about the Constitution and about the
liberties which it guarantees. It is
without question the greatest instru-
ment of popular government ever
drafted. There is no trouble with the
Constitution, but there is great deal
OF trouble with the manner in which
1t has been interpreted and applied.
1T was ordained and established by
the people of the United States to pre-
serve their liberties, but because we
have strangely confused the artificial
person called corporation with the
natural person for whose protection
the Constitution was designed, we have
permitted the Nation to fall into the
dismal plight in which it finds itself.
We shall not even begin to achieve
permanent prosperity until we fully
appreciate the difference between the
two.
A corporation has no existence ex-
cept that which is given to it by Gov
eminent. A corporation, in other
words, is the, creature of the law.
When three or four persons make up
their minds to create a corporation
they must go to some public authority
to obtain the charter which brings the
artificial person into existence
Now a natural person. on the other