Company (business)

“ On the one hand, the approved methods of corporation finance may in some measure be resorted to by a private firm, Without formal conversion of the concern into the corporate form; and on the other hand, an incorporated company may continue to carry on its business after the manner usual with privately owned concerns. ”

“ Every corporation is composed of four parties: the stockholders, who supply the money with which to build the plant, pay the wages, and operate the business; the directors, whose duty it is to select executive [Pg 50] officers carefully and wisely, plan the larger and more important policies, and generally see to it that the company is prudently administered; the officers, who conduct the current operations; and the employees, who contribute their skill and their work. ”

“ Besides the above arrangements you can go into partnership with some moneyed man, or interest, and finally a good plan, where a large amount of capital is required to build a plant and start a business, is to form a company, or corporation as it is called. ”

“ The typical business corporation of the last century, owned by a small group of individuals, managed by their owners, and limited in size by their personal wealth, is being supplanted by huge concerns in which the lives of tens or hundreds of thousands of employees and the property of tens or hundreds of thousands of investors are subjected, through the corporate mechanism, to the control of a few men. ”

“ As most of our other great corporations—the Steel Trust, the Harvester Company, the Tobacco Company, and the like—have passed through similar ordeals, all the information the student could ask concerning them exists in the same form. ”

“ Comparison must be between large and small enterprises in the same line of business, or in many lines of business viewed in combination. This comparison being made, large sales will be found in the main to have the advantage over small ones. ”

“ The choses in action of a corporation, its rolling stock, and personal property, according to the principles of the common law, have their situs at the domicile or place of business of the company. Mayor, etc., of Gallatin v. ”

“ You will see those engaged in these companies associate together, confer with each other, lay their plans before each other, investigate them, scan every branch, and every part and particle of their business. ”

“ A corporation which derived its profits from public franchises, or from a business transacted in many different states, found the purchase of a local or state machine well within its means and well according to its interests. ”

“ Before speaking of the plan of industrial representation to which our president has referred, I want to say just a few words outlining my views as to what different interests constitute a company or corporation.
Every corporation is made up of four parties: Stockholders, directors, officers and employees. ”

“ They who suggested it were moved by the success of those great enterprises which every day develops around us, and which, by the magic word 'Company,' assume vitality and consistence; they speculated on immense profits just as they could compute a problem in arithmetic. ”

“ The argument supposes the corporation to have been originated for the management of an individual concern, to be founded upon contract between individuals, having private trade and private profit for its great end and principal object. ”

“ Management.—The persons who contribute to the capital of the corporation, or company, receive certificates of stock, that is, pieces of paper certifying that said persons own so many shares in the company. ”

“ It is apparent that the corporation within the limits prescribed by statute has most of the attributes and powers of a person—it can sue and be sued, can hold and pass title to property, real and personal, can carry on business in its own name, is responsible to the extent of its entire property for the payment of its debts, etc.
Growth of the Corporate Form of Organization.—The corporate form of organization is being increasingly utilized for the conduct of business of almost every kind. ”

“ In the short space of four years a crowd of companies, every one of which confidently held out to subscribers the hope of immense gains, sprang into existence—the Insurance Company, the Paper Company, the Lutestring Company, the Pearl Fishery Company, the Glass Bottle Company, the Alum Company, the Blythe Coal Company, the Swordblade Company. ”

“ I.⁠Every organization, association, combination, or trust of persons or corporations, which seeks to control, combine, pool, or consolidate the business or property of any persons or corporations engaged in any trade, business, or manufacture, or which seeks to consolidate several such properties, or unite several businesses, or place the property of individuals or corporations, or the capital stock thereof, in the hands of individuals for control or management, shall be deemed a corporation, and subject to all the regulations of the laws as such. ”

“ It is in the industrial corporations that this capitalization of good-will is seen to the best advantage - including, under the term "industrial corporations," railway companies, iron and steel concerns, mines, etc., as well as what are known in the stock market specifically as "industrials." The corporation is, of course, not the only form of business concern in the industrial field, but it is the typical, characteristic form of business organization for the management of industry in modern times, and the peculiarities of modern capital are therefore best seen in these modern corporations. ”

“ The incorporation of a single individual is not legally possible in this country.
The corporation, because of its peculiar advantages over other forms of business organization, has become the accepted form for most large enterprises. The gathering together of large capital funds, the ease and efficiency of management and control, continuous life, the facility of transfer of ownership, and the limited liability of the stockholders, make the corporate form attractive to the investor and absolutely necessary to the large businesses carried on today. ”

“ To gather and compile information concerning, and to investigate from time to time the organization, business, conduct, practices, and management of any corporation engaged in commerce, excepting banks and common carriers subject to the Act to regulate commerce, and its relation to other corporations and to individuals, associations, and partnerships. ”

“ A firm that dates from past generations, still carrying on business in the name of its founder, has had all its members and employés changed one by one, perhaps several times over, while the firm has continued to occupy the same place and to maintain like relations to buyers and sellers. ”

“ I mean to get into the promotion of big things—big corporation business. A fellow that finances street railways and industrial plants, controls banks and makes towns grow—a builder; that’s what I mean to be. ”

“ More or less, they crowd upon and overlap each other, but without losing their identity, and so, while we cannot say that a joint stock company is a corporation, we can say * * * that the joint stock company is a partnership with some of the powers of a corporation. ”

“ Third Case.—The third case shows the firm in a position to demand something more than book values as the basis for admission of the new partner. The presumption is that the old firm is favorably known, has an established trade and patronage, built by fair dealing and judicious advertising, by its favorable location, and the numerous other ways in which a substantial business may be developed. Its standing in the community is a factor of value to the firm because it brings trade to its doors. ”

“ Conversely, when a flourishing partnership or similar private firm has gained an assured footing of good-will, in the way of any or all of the items enumerated under that term above, its lot, as prescribed by modern business exigencies, is to go up into a corporation, either by simple conversion into the corporate form or through coalition with other firms into a larger corporate whole. ”

“ It is, e.g., well known that whenever circumstances arise which immediately affect the value of the good-will of a corporation, it is the quotations of the common stock that first and most decidedly are affected. ”

“ It can and should require for itself and for the use of all persons interested in the corporation, the fullest and most detailed information, consistent with practical business methods, as to the details of its organization, the powers and restrictions imposed upon its stockholders and as to the property against which stock is to be or has been issued. ”

“ Founders' shares originated with private companies, being a convenient means of securing to the partners in the vendor firm, on conversion, the control of the business as well as the lion’s share of the profits. ”

“ A successful company, even when it has lost monopoly or privileges, has, by its command of capital and general resources, established so strong a position that private individuals or new companies can rarely compete with it successfully. ”

“ Those most generally known are business corporations; and though many of them are very large, legally they are private corporations. A railroad corporation, though performing a public service, nevertheless is a private corporation. ”

“ None of the original members have left the company, save by death, and, it being a close corporation, they keep their financial statements, their books, their profits, and affairs to themselves; and the outer world, compelled to guess at things, puts a fabulous estimate upon the sum annually divided among the stockholders. ”

“ That’s the most familiar form and it’s necessary and produces big, but there are other kinds. You know the majority of your trade never knew the founders of your company personally. When they think of your company they think of you. ”

“ Let me observe, in the first place, that company which is really good is very rare and very shy. But you have surmounted this difficulty, and procured him the best letters of recommendation to the most eminent and respectable in every capital. ”

“ Shares are of various kinds—ordinary, preference, deferred, founders’ and management. Into what classes of shares the original capital of the company shall be divided, what shall be the amount of each class, and their respective rights, privileges and priorities, are matters for the consideration of the promoters of the company, and must depend on its special circumstances and requirements. ”

“ The second Corporation includes all members of the technical or managerial staff in any private business, industrial or rural, with the exception of the proprietors or partners in the business.
In the third, are united all persons employed in commercial undertakings who are not actually operatives. ”

“ There are three classes of establishments by which industry is carried on—those that are the property of an individual, those which belong to partnerships or firms of unlimited liability, and those belonging to corporations of limited liability. The usefulness of the individual system is of course limited to small undertakings, where but little capital and credit are necessary; this form of organization still dominates the field in agriculture, in the small retail trade, and in the repairing industries. ”

“ The firm owned or controlled ample capital for their enterprises, and employed the laborers. It needs no argument to show that the business was more thoroughly done because these industrial partners were taken from among the laborers ”

“ With a moderate share of sagacity, you will, before you have been half an hour in their company, easily discover those two principal figures: both by the deference which you will observe the whole company pay them, and by that easy, careless, and serene air, which their consciousness of power gives them. As in this case, so in all others, aim always at the highest; get always into the highest company, and address yourself particularly to the highest in it. ”

“ The utility of this institution soon appeared, and many more desiring to be admitted than we thought convenient for one company, they were advised to form another, which was accordingly done; and this went on, one new company being formed after another, till they became so numerous as to include most of the inhabitants who were men of property ”

“ There are a million or two of business firms in the country, and five or ten times as many clerks; and consider the handling and rehandling, the accounting and reaccounting, the planning and worrying, the balancing of petty profit and loss. ”

“ The essential properties of corporate existence are quite distinct from the franchises of the corporation. The franchise of being a corporation belongs to the corporators,while the powers and privileges vested in and to be exercised by the corporate body as such, are the franchises of the corporation. ”

“ As the business grew, and markets were obtained at home and abroad, more persons and capital were added to the business, and new corporate agencies were obtained or organized, the object being always the same, to extend our business by furnishing the best and cheapest products. ”

“ It is at war with the notions which we derive from the English law with regard to the nature of corporate bodies. A corporation is a distinct entity. Its affairs are necessarily managed by officers and agents, it is true ”

“ In industrial enterprise as it was then carried on the prevailing unit of organisation was the private firm, with partnership concerns making up a secondary and less commonplace element in the business community. Ordinarily and typically205 these private firms and partnerships owned a certain material equipment employed in industry, and they took the initiative in industrial enterprise on the ground of this ownership; hiring the workmen, buying materials and supplies, and selling the products of the establishment. ”