Two hundred years ago partnerships in business were very rare. A man in
business simply made things and sold them--and all the manufacturing was
done by himself and his immediate family. Soon we find instances of
brothers continuing the work the father had begun, as in the case of the
Elzevirs and the Plantins, the great bookmakers of Holland. To meet this
competition, four printers, in 1640, formed a partnership and pooled
their efforts. A local writer by the name of Van Krugen denounced these
four men, and made savage attacks on partnerships in general as wicked
and illegal, and opposed to the best interests of the people. This view
seems to have been quite general, for there was a law in Amsterdam
forbidding all partnerships in business that were not licensed by the
state. The legislature of the State of Missouri has recently made war on
the department store in the same way, using the ancient Van Krugen
argument as a reason, for there is no copyright on stupidity.

In London in the seventeenth century men who were found guilty of
pooling their efforts and dividing profits, were convicted by law and
punished for "contumacy, contravention and connivance," and were given a
taste of the stocks in the public square.

When corporations were formed for the first time, only a few years ago,
there was a fine burst of disapproval. The corporation was declared a
scheme of oppression, a hungry octopus, a grinder of the individual. And
to prove the case various instances of hardship were cited; and no doubt
there was much suffering, for many people are never able to adjust
themselves to new conditions without experiencing pain and regret.

But we now believe that corporations came because they were required.
Certain things the times demanded, and no one man, or two or three men