Читать книгу Our Benevolent Feudalism - William J. Ghent - Страница 12

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Many of these so-called independent concerns find it possible, and some of them find it fairly profitable, to continue. But the more the large combinations wax in power, the greater is the subordination of the small concerns. An increasing constraint characterizes all their efforts. They are more closely confined to particular activities and to local territories, their bounds being dictated and enforced by the pressure of the combinations. The petty tradesmen and producers are thus an economically dependent class. Equally subordinate—and for the most part subservient—are the owners of small and moderate holdings in the trusts. The larger holdings—often the single largest holding—determine what shall be done. Generally, too, the petty investors are acquiescent to the will of the Big Men. But occasionally, as in the case of the transfer of the Metropolitan Street Railway stock, they rebel, and it becomes necessary to suppress them. At the meeting which determined this action, the protesting minority were emphatically ordered to “shut up”; when they still objected, the presiding officer declared, “We will vote first; you can discuss the matter afterward,” and the vote was promptly taken. The head of an American corporation, moreover, is often an absolute ruler, who determines not only the policy of the enterprise, but the personnel of the board of directors. It was a naïve letter which a well-known New York financier recently wrote to his “board of directors” on the occasion of his retirement from the presidency of a great trust company in favor of a retiring Cabinet minister. He had been looking about, he explained, for some time for a competent successor. Now he had found him and had chosen him. Of course the formal action of the board would be a welcome detail; and, equally a matter of course, it was promptly given. One of the copper kings recently testified in a legal action that he “didn’t want to call the board of directors together to obtain authority to buy adjacent properties.” He went ahead, did what he pleased, and let the board discuss the matter afterward. If there was ever so much as a question about it, it was but a profitless interference.