nt of the people, and it has merely been
diverted from its proper use by the lawless votaries of the "System."
Consider the institution as we now understand it. Certain individuals
decide to conduct their business in railroads, mines, manufactories,
patents, etc., in the form of a corporation and apply to the
community--the State Government--asking authorization to do so. They are
compelled first to conform to the rules and regulations laid down by the
State for the control of corporations, which say in one form or other:

"We create you for the purpose of doing those things that are best for
the many, not the few, and if we knew you would use our authority to
oppress the many in the interest of the few we would not create you."
The fundamental privilege of incorporation is the legal authorization to
issue paper titles of ownership to the business just incorporated. These
are in the form of stocks and bonds. Whoever owns these paper titles
shall possess the property and the business as the individuals did
before they incorporated, and the law presumes that they shall manage
and control that business, receive the benefits which come from it, and
suffer any loss arising from its conduct, and that all these benefits
and responsibilities shall be as laid down in the law. It follows that
no harm other than that the law expressly prescribes penalties to
prevent can come to any one from corporations thus created, always
provided the laws are what they appear and what the people intended them
to be, and that they are enforced as the people intended they should be.

It is most important to all concerned in a corporation that the paper
ownership shall represent the real value of the property on which it is
based, and no more. When the people exchange their savings for these
authorized paper tokens, they should be able to rest confident in the
State's guarantee that they are worth what they purport.

There have probably been jailed in the United States during the past
twenty years thousands and thousands of American citizens whose
aggregate stealings do not amount to one-tenth the total taken from the
people by either the Amalgamated, the United States Steel, the American
Tobacco Company, or a score of other fraudulently organized or
fraudulently conducted corporations.

There are various ways of organizing corporations and issuing their
stocks and bonds. Sometimes a company is organized to acquire a
property; individuals and i