CORPORATIONS as HISTORIC TOOLS of EMPIRE

from James B. Weaver, A Call To Action, 1892

(Read more of Weaver's comments on Corporate Piracy.)

"When piracy received its fatal blow at the close of the 16th century, it was immediately succeeded at the opening of the 17th by a still greater scourge, the corporation -- a pirate in fact. Piracy and brigandage were lawless, but the corporation sprang into existence bearing a commission form the State, its creator, which authorized it to rob legally both sea and land. Incorporated trade societies in Britain owe their origin to royal charters and Acts pf Parliament, but they tormented Rome long before the fall of the Empire. The first great corporation for pecuniary profit -- the parent trade monopoly of modern history, was the English East India Company, chartered by Queen Elizabeth at the close of the 16th century (1600). Its accursed progeny have scourged the world for three centuries and control to-day the machinery of every civilized nation on earth." p 230

"The history of this company is one of unparalleled cruelty, pillage and conquest. It equipped fleets, patrolled the seas with the British Navy, made war, conquered provinces, subdued islands and finally established firmly the dominion of Great Britain over the helpless people and territory of India. To protect the properties and privileges of the East India Company Britain has waged war by land and by sea and shed blood and spent the treasure of her people...

"A widespread hallucination for corporate adventure and monopolistic plunder pervaded all Europe at this period. The imagination and avarice of all who were speculatively inclined were fed by the booty brought home by the annual voyages of the East India Company, and this feeling was inflamed by the connivance and patronage of the Crown...Hudson's Bay Company...secured to them 'the sole trade, and commerce of all those seas, straits, bays, rivers, lakes, creeks and sounds in whatever latitude they shall be, that lie within the entrance of the straits commonly called Hudson's Straits, together with all lands and territories upon the country's coasts and confines of the seas, bays, etc., aforesaid.' They were also given complete lordship of the entire legislative, executive and judicial power within these vague limits, and they were also granted the right to control the entire commerce to and from this vast area. The company constructed forts, founded colonies and organized local governments." pp 233-235

"The career of these two great companies -- the East India and the Hudson's Bay Companies -- portray by deep lines of cruel etching the diabolical character and capabilities of the modern corporation, -- of that type and class of artificial beings created by the state and endowed with greed and unrestrained by the feelings of pity."

"The brigand and the pirate are human and pass from the cradle to manhood through the evolutions of Child life. Traces of a mother's influence remain with them to the last. But the corporation has no mother. It springs into being without heart, without emotion, with a full set of teeth, panting with the passion for plunder and directed by mature judgement from the hour of its creation to the end of its self-appointed career. How can flesh and blood cope with such a antagonist? The East India Company was brought into being, granted lawful immortality by the rescript of Queen Elizabeth who died three years thereafter. She was succeeded by James I, son of Mary Stuart whom Elizabeth had cruely beheaded. Succeeding James came Charles I, who in turn lost his head, as his grandmother Mary, had before him. And so through the rise and fall of dynasties, kingdoms, powers and potentates, this company lived on, waxed powerful, rose serene above death and the decay of empires, and finally laid its powerful and polluted hand upon the nations and people whom it had plundered -- and crushed them with its grasp of iron." -- p 236

WEAVER, James Baird, (1833 - 1912)

WEAVER, James Baird, a Representative from Iowa; born in Dayton, Ohio, June 12, 1833; moved with his parents to Michigan in 1835 and subsequently moved to Iowa and settled on a farm near Bloomfield; attended the common schools; studied law at Bloomfield 1853-1856; was graduated from the Cincinnati Law School in April 1856; was admitted to the bar in 1856 and commenced practice in Bloomfield; enlisted as a private in the Second Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry, in April 1861; commissioned first lieutenant of Company G May 27, 1861; major July 25, 1862; colonel November 10, 1862; brevetted brigadier general of Volunteers March 13, 1864; mustered out May 27, 1864; elected district attorney for the second judicial district of Iowa in 1866 and served four years; appointed assessor of internal revenue for the first district of Iowa by President Johnson March 25, 1867, and served until May 20, 1873; elected as a Greenbacker to the Forty-sixth Congress (March 4, 1879-March 3, 1881); was not a candidate for renomination in 1880, but was nominated at Chicago in 1880 by the National Greenback Party as their candidate for President of the United States; unsuccessful candidate for election to the Forty-eighth Congress in 1882; elected to the Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Congresses (March 4, 1885-March 3, 1889); chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Interior (Forty-ninth Congress), Committee on Patents (Fiftieth Congress); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1888 to the Fifty-first Congress; Populist candidate for President in 1892; mayor of Colfax, Iowa, 1901-1903; died in Des Moines, Iowa, February 6, 1912; interment in Woodland Cemetery.