condemn. Every act of business is done at the command or upon the
initiative of some ascertainable person or group of persons. These
should be held individually responsible and the punishment should fall
upon them, not upon the business organization of which they make illegal
use. It should be one of the main objects of our legislation to divest
such persons of their corporate cloak and deal with them as with those
who do not represent their corporations, but merely by deliberate
intention break the law. Business men the country through would, I am
sure, applaud us if we were to take effectual steps to see that the
officers and directors of great business bodies were prevented from
bringing them and the business of the country into disrepute and danger.

Other questions remain which will need very thoughtful and practical
treatment. Enterprises, in these modern days of great individual
fortunes, are oftentimes interlocked, not by being under the control of
the same directors, but by the fact that the greater part of their
corporate stock is owned by a single person or group of persons who are
in some way ultimately related in interest. We are agreed, I take it,
that holding _companies_ should be prohibited, but what of the
controlling private ownership of individuals or actually coöperative
groups of individuals? Shall the private owners of capital stock be
suffered to be themselves in effect holding companies? We do not wish, I
suppose, to forbid the purchase of stocks by any person who pleases to
buy them in such quantities as he can afford, or in any way arbitrarily
to limit the sale of stocks to bona fide purchasers. Shall we require
the owners of stock, when their voting power in several companies which
ought to be independent of one another would constitute actual control,
to make election in which of them they will exercise their right to
vote? This question I venture for your consideration.