The bearing of these figures on our subject is now apparent.  All of this property is disfranchised.  It is, economically, to a very great extent disfranchised; politically, it is altogether disfranchised.  What I mean by this is that the owners of this wealth, as owners, have very little to say, and nothing to do, about its care and management.  Probably more than half of our people are directly or indirectly interested in it as owners.  They have been attracted by a desire to share, however humbly, in big and famous enterprises, by the freedom from liability of the portion of their estates outside the particular investments, and by the freedom at death or withdrawal of associates from appraisals and accountings and probable closing of the business, as is the inevitable practice in mere partnerships.  Two centuries ago people who saved money could hardly find ways to invest it.  The practice of incorporation has enormously increased our wealth by putting a stop to hoarding without interest, stimulating saving, and broadening industry.  The number of individual owners of the bonds and stocks of corporations is incalculable, and their holdings added to those of savings banks, insurance companies, trust companies and other fiduciary institutions, churches, hospitals, and colleges, make up a total of almost fabulous extent.  It is true that large sums are loaned to persons, and on mortgages of real estate; but for most people such investments are not desirable or convenient, and they are altogether inadequate to absorb the vast sums that are available.  In fact probably most investments of this character are now made by corporations who gather the savings of little depositors and premium payers; and it would cost much more to make them in any other way.

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Corporations, therefore, are necessary, but they necessarily separate the ownership of wealth from its management.  To invest is generally to entrust your money to another, and those who invest in corporations, unless they control them, are economically disfranchised, because the stockholders in all large corporations almost never influence the management of their property, and as a rule do not know anything about it.  They don’t because they can’t.  A few years ago a very large number of people were much worried by the exposure of some scandalous doings by the managers of certain great life-insurance companies.  They would have been very glad to combine and choose better managers if they could; but they couldn’t.  Laws were passed for the purpose of enabling the policy-holders to select their trustees, but the only result has been a ridiculous and rather expensive fiasco.  As in politics, the rank and file select the managers selected for them by a few men who understand the situation.  When many thousands of people own stock in a concern, they live all over this continent and in foreign parts, and it is a physical impossibility to bring them together.  They do not know one another, and very few of them know much about the affairs of the concern, and if they know anything of the candidates that may be suggested, it is generally only by hearsay.