Bad company

“ But if the company were bad stewards and bad sovereigns, when the whole of their neat revenue and profits belonged to themselves, and were at their own disposal, they were surely not likely to be better when three-fourths of them were to belong to other people, and the other fourth, though to be laid out for the benefit of the company, yet to be so under the inspection and with the approbation of other people. ”

“ You're not a proper selection for a relic at all, and you give a bad impression of your company. You ought to have thought of this, and staid up there and got killed, and let some better-looking man got away, that would have done the company credit. ”

“ At one time he finds his company unfortunate in having fallen between two companies of quite another class,—“’tis profanity all the time; yet instead of a bad influence on our men, I think it works the other way,—it disgusts them.” ”

“ There is a sharp recognition of this inferior moral make-up of a corporation in the attitude of ordinary men and women, who, scrupulously honest in their dealings with one another, slide almost unconsciously to an altogether lower level in dealing with a railroad or insurance company. ”

“ The truth is, they are people without any parts or fancy, and who, having no will of their own, readily assent to, concur in, and applaud, whatever is said or done in the company; and adopt, with the same alacrity, the most virtuous or the most criminal, the wisest or the silliest scheme, that happens to be entertained by the majority of the company. This foolish, and often criminal complaisance flows from a foolish cause,—the want of any other merit. ”

“ All in all, the system, while deceptive and dishonest on its face, was for a time a tolerated evil, apparently sanctioned by the company and became a veritable disease among the colored employees who, without exception, received and kept the company's money without a single qualm of conscience. ”

“ One cannot believe that this shrewd Company of high-minded and acute business gentlemen would be guilty of the folly attributed to them. Their effort is in every way honorable to attract their own line, and it is past belief that they should play into the hands of the Grand Trunk and other competing lines in any such manner as the accusation, if proved, would mean. Give them time and opportunity for an explanation before any expression of indignation manifests itself, and especially before any hasty and inconsiderate act of discrimination against the Company is made. ”

“ These were mere playful or humorous titles in recognition of the fact that this firm had, by its industry, skill and energy, captured a larger share of the patronage of the people than was agreeable to its competitors, and they, in despair of success by fair means, resorted to the old-fashioned method of calling their antagonist bad names. ”

“ Inform yourself of the characters and situations of the company, before you give way to what your imagination may prompt you to say. There are, in all companies, more wrong beads than right ones, and many more who deserve, than who like censure. Should you therefore expatiate in the praise of some virtue, which some in company notoriously want; or declaim against any vice, which others are notoriously infected with, your reflections, however general and unapplied, will, by being applicable, be thought personal and leveled at those people. ”

“ But the company, which of all others you should most carefully avoid, is that low company, which, in every sense of the word, is low indeed; low in rank, low in parts, low in manners, and low in merit. You will, perhaps, be surprised that I should think it necessary to warn you against such company, but yet I do not think it wholly, unnecessary, from the many instances which I have seen of men of sense and rank, discredited, verified, and undone, by keeping such company. ”

“ This story was told to illustrate the proposition that every action has its prompting motive, and my fellow-passenger imparted to me his conclusion that the motive of the manager of the New York corporation for refusing to listen to his client was that "the scoundrel was in cohoots with the agents to share in the commission and cheat his own company." The public will in time come to look for motives, and we, fellow-editors, and the managers of mutual life-insurance companies, will be judged by what seems the most apparent motive for our actions.... ”

“ Lots of writers and artists have made good livings by teaching magazine readers that it is dishonest for a corporation, or a corporation official, to prosper; that the way to integrity is through insolvency; that the word 'company' is a term of reproach, while 'corporation' is a foul epithet, and 'trust' blasphemy. ”

“ In turn, it bore fruit in miseries and horrors multiplied for millions, like those of the child lacemakers of Mid-Victorian England, who were dragged from their beds at two or three o'clock in the morning to work until ten or eleven at night in the services of a stock company.
A corporation is said to have no soul. ”

“ Everybody but the corporation knows the house of the Nine Nations, a haunt for wasted prostitutes, assassins, burglars, thieves—every grade of criminals known to depraved nature. The corporation would seem either to have a charming sympathy for it, or to look upon it with that good-natured indifference so happily illustrated while eating its oysters and drinking its whiskey. An empty-headed corporation is sure always to have its hands very full, which is the case with yours at this moment. ”

“ With such a way of life and such habits, how is it possible to keep up that tone of decency which it is necessary to maintain in a select company? Nothing seems to them so difficult and so irksome, and to avoid this unpleasant restraint, they keep away from such societies altogether. ”

“ Some few sultry days have we had, but the true Australian summer has not, so far, appeared in its lurid, wasting splendour. Hardly a ripening tinge is yet visible on the wide-waving prairies, the bespangled meadows, the shaded forest lawns. Wild flowers of every shape and hue—blue and scarlet, pink and orange, white and yellow, perfumed or scentless—glorify the landscape. ”

“ It is, of course, for the Company to judge how best to promote its own business, but when so large a portion of the public as those who support temperance laws and seeks their enforcement is openly snubbed in the interests, and it would seem at the instance, of illicit and murderous dealers in a contraband article, from the transport of which your Company seeks profit, we may fairly ask the question whether the Company is acting even the part of worldly wisdom. ”

“ THE MODERN CORPORATION
Beyond question there is a suspicion of corporations. There may be reason for such suspicion very often; for a corporation may be moral or immoral, just as a man may be moral or the reverse; but it is folly to condemn all corporations because some are bad, or even to be unduly suspicious of all, because some are bad. But the corporation in form and character has come to stay—that is a thing that may be depended upon. Even small firms are becoming corporations, because it is a convenient form of partnership. ”

“ Vain against corporations are laws relating to heredity, for corporations may perpetuate themselves and live through generations. Above all, he warned the people against giving a corporation any monopoly. Dangerous and evil as is any monopoly in the hands of an individual, in the grasp of a corporation its evil is multiplied infinitely. Although a corporation has no soul, it may have a head, who, wielding its vast power with a single will, may make of himself a most dangerous despot. ”

“ Besides, it is stupid to accuse those who succeed of cruelty. When their workers suffer, they suffer themselves. Can you believe that the Company has not as much to lose as you have in the present crisis? ”

“ There might be men on the board who personally hated each other with all the intensity of business hatred. Yet when it came to a matter of business policy for the company they all got together and put the proposition through. ”

“ In view of all the wrong doing in corporation management it must not, however, be forgotten that the majority of our corporations are ably and honestly managed in the interest of the stockholders. It is not surprising that black sheep have crept into some of them, for a certain percentage of people in every walk of life and every association, church or social club, are bad at heart, and show up in their true 935colors, when subjected to the temptation to commit wrongs which will tend to their personal advantage. ”

“ If you think your fool ditch is worth more than a Human's life, though your company's enemy, that's for you to settle as you can when the time comes you'll have to. I don't ask any favors. But if you got anny desency left in you through working for that fish-livered company of bondholders coming out here to stomp us farmers into the dirt, you will call this bizness quits. ”

“ From the moment that you are dressed and go out, pocket all your knowledge with your watch, and never pull it out in company unless desired: the producing of the one unasked, implies that you are weary of the company; and the producing of the other unrequired, will make the company weary of you. Company is a republic too jealous of its liberties, to suffer a dictator even for a quarter of an hour ”

“ A hundred deeply-rutted tracks now cross or run parallel with the once sole roadway. Wild oaths in strange tongues awaken the long-silent echoes. All ranks and orders of men are mingled as in the old crusades. ”

“ But what can be expected when contractors make their men scoundrels in order to hold their jobs, and teach them to rob the public, and then are horrified when they are robbed or cheated by their own men! Then the men, many of whom have no idea of honour, are all the time trying to hurt one another in order to show up well with the company ”

“ The Company is carrying on the business of a railway company, and its objects do not extend beyond the promotion of that business. Its success depends upon the favor and patronage of the community at large, and if one of its officers or employees so conducts himself as to antagonize a section of the community, or even in a manner which is likely to bring about that result, the Company's interests are injuriously affected, and the Company will naturally do, what every business man would do, namely, protect its interests by his removal. ”

“ With all the capriciousness of Australian seasons the springtime of this year has shown a disposition to linger—waving back with grateful showers and dew-cooled nights and mornings the too impatient summer. Still is the grass brightly green of hue, the flower unfaded. The plague of dust has been stayed again and again by the welcome rainfall. There has never been more than one day when the winds have risen to a wintry bleakness. ”

“ The corporation keeps its eyes in its belly, its little sense in its big boots, and its dull action in the whiskey-jug. Like Mrs. Swiggs, it cannot afford to do anything for this heathen world in the heart of home. No, sir! The corporation has the most delicate sense of its duties. It is well paid to nurture the nucleus of a pestilence that may some day break out and sweep over the city like an avenging enemy. It thanks kind Providence, eating oysters and making Presidents the while, for averting the dire scourge it encourages with its apathy. ”

“ The legal fiction of a soulless corporation is the expression of a biting social fact. The corporation has no soul. It has no heart. It is only a brain and a muscular, grasping hand.
And so it is that in dealing with employés and in dealing with the public our corporations are in fact too often a tyranny remorseless as that against which our fathers rebelled in 1776. ”

“ The business, as we see it, merely uses the names, and would be precisely the same business if these names covered no personages. Do the managers and submanagers really carry it on for their own profit, using these high names to give dignity to their rascality, and to make poor people believe that they have unbounded capital at their back? One is punished for defamation of character if he denies the existence of the partners, yet not the very chief of all the managers pretends to have seen any of the three! ”

“ A fairy-like structure arises in its place, delicate with marble tracery of pillars and arches, where the elves may flit love-whispering through the long sweet nights, may beckon to the Lorelei as she combs her tresses and warbles the fateful song on the rock which guards the midstream above the shimmering whirlpool. ”

“ To such a disgusting degree of depravity do we see these stock operations carried, that members of the church of high standing offer, when ‘concerned,’ to betray their brother ‘pals,’ and, in their forgetfulness of the morality to which they sanctimoniously listen every Sunday, state that ‘all they care about is to look out for number one.’ A manager of a great corporation is requested to issue bonds of his company without authority, offering ‘to buy the bonds if you are caught, or buy the bonds with the understanding not to pay for them unless you are p. ”

“ As a corollary, he is 190expected to testify against the interests of the poor fellow who, perhaps, as the result of the company’s wilful neglect, has only the wreck of a once vigorous manhood with which to oppose the company’s immense capital. ”

“ Also, tell people that stealing—even small amounts from a large company—will hurt. If you can’t prove how it will hurt the corporation noticeably, then you’d better make a good case that it will hurt them. ”