THE STATE AND SEMI-PUBLIC CORPORATIONS.[1]
The problem indicated by the subject of this paper may be formulated as follows: What have been and what should be the relations of a given society—i. e., of the organized people, represented by government, municipal, state or national—to corporations carrying on semi-public functions? This form of the problem emphasizes the necessary distinction between the people, on the one hand, and government, or the people's most prominent agency for social control, on the other hand. This distinction leads to the preliminary suggestion that the government is supposed to represent the whole people, whereas corporations are at best segregated parties, and as such their immediate interests appear antagonistic to those of the whole. Hence, the obvious task of government is to promote the establishment of a properly balanced coördination not only between the incorporated and the employed parties on the one hand, but also between these and the other members of the state.
What, then, are semi-public corporations? There is general agreement in the use of C. J. Marshall's description of a corporation, viz.: "An artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law." We are also generally agreed in taking for granted the doctrine of public corporations, familiar since the Dartmouth College case, viz., that a public corporation is the legally recognized body of people in a given area; the body so constituted existing for the benefit of all its constituents; the constituents meanwhile, so long as they reside within the area, having no choice about membership of the corporation.
The most definite and workable definition of a semi-public
- ↑ This paper is a by-product of the seminar in sociology conducted by the author. It has made special use of work done by Messrs. J. D. Forrest, Paul Monroe and H. W. Thurston.
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