CONTENTS OF PART I. I. Creation of Corporations. II. How Charters may be Amended. V. Eminent Domain. VI. Duties of Private Corporations. VII. Individual Liability of Stockholders. VIII. Dissolution of Corporations. I. CREATION OF CORPORATIONS. Only Under General Laws.- SECTION 1. The legislature shall pass no special act conferring corporate powers.* Corporations may be created under general laws; but all such laws may be amended or repealed. [Const., Art. 12, §1.] SEC. 2. The term corporation, as used in this article, shall include all the associations and joint-stock companies having powers and privileges not possessed by individuals or partnerships. [Id., § 6.] SEC. 3. Private corporations may be created by the voluntary association of five or more persons for the purposes and in the manner mentioned in the following sections of this article and amendments thereto. Every member or stockholder in said corporation shall vote in person or by proxy. [G. S. 1901, § 1248.] Purposes for which Corporations may be Formed. SEC. 4. The purposes for which private corporations may be formed are: First, The support of public worship. *Any power exercised by a corporation is a corporate power. (Gilmore v. Norton, 10 Kan. 504; State v. Bridge Co., 20 id. 414; State v. Stormont, 24 id. 695.) A corporation can be formed only for a purpose authorized by law. (Ex parte Chadwell, 1 Tenn. Ch. 95.) Where the charter uses the words of the statute in stating the corporate purpose, it will be presumed that the corporators intend to create a corporation of the general nature and with the powers granted by the statute. (Whetstone v. Ottawa University, 15 Kan. 320.) Whether a single corporation may be incorporated for a number of the statutory purposes, and thus be permitted to gather into one corporate hand all the powers and franchises of the state, was, in Carother's Appeal, 118 Pa. St. 468-489, deemed a question of great gravity, but it was not decided. In these days of so-called "trusts," this may sometime become a very serious question under the very general terms of our statute. Some omnibus corporations have already been incorporated here. Their validity has not yet been determined, if indeed it has been questioned. Second, The support of any benevolent, charitable, educational or missionary undertaking. Third, The support of any literary or scientific undertaking, the maintenance of a library, or the promoting of painting, music, or other fine arts. Fourth, The encouragement of agriculture and horticulture. Fifth, The maintenance of public parks, and of facilities for skating and other innocent sports. Sixth, The maintenance of a club for social enjoyment. Seventh, The maintenance of a public or private cemetery. Eighth, The prevention or punishment of theft, or willful injuries to property, and insurance against such risks. Ninth, The insurance of human life, and dealing in annuities. Tenth, The insurance of human beings against sickness or personal injury. Eleventh, The insurance of the lives of domestic animals, or against their loss by other means. Twelfth, The insurance of property, marine risks. Thirteenth, The insurance of property against loss or injury by fire, or by any risk of inland transportation. Fourteenth, The purchase, location, and laying out of townsites, and the sale and conveyance of the same in lots and subdivisions, or otherwise. Fifteenth, The construction and maintenance of a railway and a telegraph line in connection therewith. Sixteenth, The construction and maintenance of any species of road, and of bridges in connection therewith. Seventeenth, The construction and maintenance of a bridge. Eighteenth, The construction and maintenance of a telegraph line. Nineteenth, The establishment and maintenance of a line of stages. Twentieth, The establishment and maintenance of a ferry. Twenty-first, The building and navigation of steamboats, and carriage of persons and property thereon. Twenty-second, The supply of water to the public. Twenty-third, The manufacture and supply of gas, or the supply of light or heat to the public by any other means. Twenty-fourth, The transaction of any manufacturing, mining, mechanical or chemical business. Twenty-fifth, The transaction of a printing and publishing business. Twenty-sixth, The establishment and maintenance of a hotel. Twenty-seventh, The erection of buildings, and the accommodations and loan of funds for the purchase of real property. Twenty-eighth, The improvement of the breed of domestic animals by importation, sale or otherwise. Twenty-ninth, The transportation of goods, wares, merchandise, or any valuable thing. Thirtieth, The promotion of immigration. Thirty-first, The construction and maintenance of sewers. Thirty-second, The construction and maintenance of a street railway. Thirty-third, The erection and maintenance of markethouses and market-places. Thirty-fourth, The construction and maintenance of dams and canals for the purpose of water-works, irrigation or manufacturing purposes. Thirty-fifth, The construction, maintenance and operation of union stock-yards, and the erection of such buildings, hotels, railways and switches as may be necessary for that purpose. Thirty-sixth, The conversion and disposal of agricultural products by means of mills, elevators, markets and stores, or otherwise. Thirty-seventh, The organization and maintenance of boards of trade and business exchanges, with powers to hold and improve real estate and to transact any and all business connected therewith. |