Archive Report
Archive Report
Theodore Roosevelt's Proposal of a National Incorporation Act
Twenty-Five Years Ago, in a special message to Congress, April 27, 1908, Theodore Roosevelt recommended full publicity of corporation financing and said: “The issuance of the securities of any combination doing interstate business should be under the supervision of the national government.” In the same message he recommended an anti-injunction law, similar in purpose to that finally enacted by the 72nd Congress in 1932, and he renewed an earlier recommendation for passage of an act which would require federal incorporation of all business enterprises engaged in interstate commerce.
A national incorporation law for railroads had been recommended by President Roosevelt in his annual message of December 3. 1907, at the commencement of the depression which followed the financial ...