g, and we are asked to look upon the corporations
very much as the Rhine peasants used to look upon the robber barons who
were accustomed to swoop down upon them and carry off their flocks. A
corporation is absolutely nothing more than a partnership of individuals
who prefer to do business under certain regulations imposed by the
government. There is no difference between the corporate and the
individual ways of doing business except a piece of stamped paper issued
by the Secretary of State. The corporation is made up of individuals who
have just the same ideas of honor as you have yourselves, who have just
as much integrity, just as great a love of fair play. A man does not
change his nature just because he turns his business into a corporation
any more than he changes his nature because he moves from one street to
another or from the first floor to the second. A corporation then is a
combination of men that has been formed under the sanction of law to
carry out certain projects that it would be difficult or even impossible
to carry out in any other way. The men forming those corporations are
just such men as we meet in daily life, no better and no worse, and
therefore with all those normal inclinations toward honesty that we are
conscious of possessing ourselves and that we are in the habit of
finding in others. The fact that these men have formed themselves into
a corporation is no more significant of evil than a combination or a
partnership among doctors or laborers. It is a part of the spirit of the
age, an age that is called upon to do great things, to develop vast
natural resources, to feed and clothe great centers of population, and
to undertake a hundred other enterprises too large for the strength of
the individual. I should like you to think over the real meaning of
this term "corporation" in order that you may understand that it has
no sinister significance whatever, that it is nothing more than a
partnership that has registered itself under certain legal conditions
for purposes that are laudable and honest. If you will do this, you will
understand at once how senseless is the outcry against corporations as
such and how absurd it is that any stigma of dishonesty should be placed
upon a particular form of doing business that is exactly like other
forms of doing business, with the addition of a legal registration.
As I have already said, there are some corporations that break laws,
or rather certain individuals