loaning of credit or investment in corporate securities by public corporations was either absolutely denied or so narrowly and securely limited as to amount to absolute prohibition.[1] The lessons taught by the results of the rash public participation in internal improvements by many of the states and municipalities of the Middle West in the preceding decades were still fresh in the minds of those who emigrated to the Pacific coast. The simple life of the frontier, too, had become habitual and almost endeared to most. It had been the condition of their fathers and of their fathers' fathers as they had made up the van from the first of the westward movement. They looked askant at the disturbing innovations produced by canals, railways, banks and large scale manufactures. Indicative of this position are the following expressions made on the floor of the convention while the motion to make the stockholders of all corporations "individually liable for all debts and liabilities of such corporations" was under consideration:
Mr. Boise, chairman of the standing committee on legislation, said, "I heard it once remarked by the man who is known as 'the learned blacksmith' (Elihu Burritt), who came up to the place where I was residing in Massachusetts, in the midst of these corporations (and with them I am familiar — and heard their bells morning, noon, and night, from year to year), he said to me he had visited England, and he said he believed that these corporations were the ruin of humanity in Europe. He had taken a great deal of interest in the common schools, and in the intellectual growth of the country, and had paid attention to these subjects, he said that he believed that in this country the corporations — these stimulants to wealth — were to be the bane and curse of the country. That the people of Massachusetts and the people of New England had fallen from the ancient dignity which they once had; that there was not now in Massachusetts that intellectual power
- ↑ Article XI, sections 5-10.
