Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
It is no limitation upon property rights or freedom of contract to
require that when men receive from Government the privilege of doing
business under corporate form, which frees them from individual
responsibility, and enables them to call into their enterprises the
capital of the public, they shall do so upon absolutely truthful
representations as to the value of the property in which the capital is
to be invested. Corporations engaged in interstate commerce should be
regulated if they are found to exercise a license working to the public
injury. It should be as much the aim of those who seek for social
betterment to rid the business world of crimes of cunning as to rid the
entire body politic of crimes of violence. Great corporations exist
only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; and
it is therefore our right and our duty to see that they work in harmony
with these institutions.
The first essential in determining how to deal with the great
industrial combinations is knowledge of the facts--publicity. In the
interest of the public, the Government should have the right to inspect
and examine the workings of the great corporations engaged in
interstate business. Publicity is the only sure remedy which we can now
invoke. What further remedies are needed in the way of governmental
regulation, or taxation, can only be determined after publicity has
been obtained, by process of law, and in the course of administration.
The first requisite is knowledge, full and complete--knowledge which
may be made public to the world.
Artificial bodies, such as corporations and joint stock or other
associations, depending upon any statutory law for their existence or
privileges, should be subject to proper governmental supervision, and
full and accurate information as to their operations should be made
public regularly at reasonable intervals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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