Federal law remains the one that got away. The closet it got was the Littlefield bill of 1903 which passed unanimously in the House but died in the Senate; actually there were many attempts between 1901 and 1914 but this is where we got closet.
http://www.amazon.com/Speculation-Economy-Finance-Triumphed-Industry/dp/1576756289/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377948821&sr=1-1&keywords=lawrence+mitchell+speculation+economy
In retrospect, this is may still be a disappointment as I think that we'd be much better served with one federal corporation law rather than 50 different states-it would be at least, I suspect, an improvement in terms of efficiency, for business as well, in terms of clarity, and many corporations did support federal law for just this reason. It could also do away with no small amount of rent seeking by different states trying to make their states more attractive than others for the corporations.
The politics of federal incorporation were always complicated. You had progressives in both parties, but the GOP had by this time clearly become the part of big business. The Dems since their formation at the end of the 18th century-they remain the world's oldest party-always suffered from regional conflicts within the party. At that time you had the Southern Democrats who believed in 'states rights' along with the populist Western Democrats-a la William Jennings Bryan-and you had the Northern Democrats-who had compromised so much in the early years to the old slave holding South in exchange for party unity.
However, the Dems supported federal incorporation in their platform. However, they had some mixed feelings about Littlefiled nonetheless as they felt the GOP was doing this mostly for politics-as the public was demanding something on 'the trusts', monopoly, and 'watered stock.'
They were sort of loath to give Republicans political cover on something that many viewed as too weak anyway-as the Sherman Act passed during Republican Benjamin Harrison was widely seen. Henry Clayton-later he would be author of the groundbreaking Clayton Act-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Antitrust_Act
-and Congressman from Alabama, summed up well the feeling of the Democrats regarding Littlefiled:
"Hereafter, when you discover the Darwinian theory, which is applicable in the case of mollusks and monkeys, make some application of it to the Republican party... That party has at last reached the monkey stage, where it has vertebrae and tail, and monkey-like imitates some of the good actions of the Democratic party." Mitchell, pg. 144
You hear the phrase 'The days were men were men' and that was a time when Democrats were Democrats. Of course, they had lots of problems and weren't able to win the White House only a few times between the end of the Civil War and FDR. Still, I think Clayton's quote is a classic.
As for federal incorporation it may well still be a great idea for the reasons discussed above-fat chance at getting anything done with this Congress
http://www.amazon.com/Speculation-Economy-Finance-Triumphed-Industry/dp/1576756289/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377948821&sr=1-1&keywords=lawrence+mitchell+speculation+economy
In retrospect, this is may still be a disappointment as I think that we'd be much better served with one federal corporation law rather than 50 different states-it would be at least, I suspect, an improvement in terms of efficiency, for business as well, in terms of clarity, and many corporations did support federal law for just this reason. It could also do away with no small amount of rent seeking by different states trying to make their states more attractive than others for the corporations.
The politics of federal incorporation were always complicated. You had progressives in both parties, but the GOP had by this time clearly become the part of big business. The Dems since their formation at the end of the 18th century-they remain the world's oldest party-always suffered from regional conflicts within the party. At that time you had the Southern Democrats who believed in 'states rights' along with the populist Western Democrats-a la William Jennings Bryan-and you had the Northern Democrats-who had compromised so much in the early years to the old slave holding South in exchange for party unity.
However, the Dems supported federal incorporation in their platform. However, they had some mixed feelings about Littlefiled nonetheless as they felt the GOP was doing this mostly for politics-as the public was demanding something on 'the trusts', monopoly, and 'watered stock.'
They were sort of loath to give Republicans political cover on something that many viewed as too weak anyway-as the Sherman Act passed during Republican Benjamin Harrison was widely seen. Henry Clayton-later he would be author of the groundbreaking Clayton Act-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Antitrust_Act
-and Congressman from Alabama, summed up well the feeling of the Democrats regarding Littlefiled:
"Hereafter, when you discover the Darwinian theory, which is applicable in the case of mollusks and monkeys, make some application of it to the Republican party... That party has at last reached the monkey stage, where it has vertebrae and tail, and monkey-like imitates some of the good actions of the Democratic party." Mitchell, pg. 144
You hear the phrase 'The days were men were men' and that was a time when Democrats were Democrats. Of course, they had lots of problems and weren't able to win the White House only a few times between the end of the Civil War and FDR. Still, I think Clayton's quote is a classic.
As for federal incorporation it may well still be a great idea for the reasons discussed above-fat chance at getting anything done with this Congress
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