The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-11-15
THE PEOPLE OWN THEM.
The Millions Who Are Directly In
 terested in American Railways. m. 4

The Millions Who Are Directly In- terested in American Railways. Railroad World. '' i'' 1 "In one way or another the people of the United States own the railways of the United States and something like 100000 persons, through wages, interest and dividends, divide two-thirds of their gross earnings of $,726. .3S0,267 Q90l-9 among them, and the other third goes for fuel, taxes, supplies and equipment" This statement Slaton Thompson, head of one of the bureaus and the General Managers Association. with headquar- ters in Chicago, was led to make as a result of replies to the question, Are there a million owners of railways secur- ities in the United States?" received from thirty-nine of the leading railway com panies of the country. These roads rep resent 107.640 miles out of the 202, All of single track mileage in the United States They gave the total number of stock holders on their books as 191 1887.
 This is pretty nearly equal to two stockholders of every mile of railway" says MT. Thompson. ''The ratio on the Illinois Central, as given by Stuyvesant Fish, Is a little over two to one. On some of the railroads the ratio rises to three to one, and in two cases as high as eight to one, while in one case the ratio swung as far as one to six the other way Ap- plying two to one as the ratio, would give 400 900 stockholders in round num- bers for the 900 miles of railway in the United States as owning $6.024, POI. .295 of capital stock as reported June 30, 1902. Assuming that the $6,109, ,9S1. .669 funded debt is as widely distributed among bond holders, the railway ownership would appear to be held in something like S00,- GOO hands But large as these figures are, and approaching the total of railway em- ployes Q.19O,315) as they do, they by no means represent the total of those in-, terested in railway ownership. The fs-' ures given are for registered stock. and, as the controller of one of the largest systems wrote: Tt Is very probable that the number of actual stockholders is twice as great, as the number of regis
 tered stockholders Then there Is the holding of railway stock by insurance companies, savings bank and trust com panies, extending their ownership among thousands And what Is true of these in stitutions as to stocks Is also true as to railway bonds-only more so."
 President Stuyvesant Fish of the llli- nois Central Railroad, at the recent an- nual meeting of that company, presented | statistics showing that one year ago the company had a total of TIPS stockholders and among them were 5,599 persons who owned less than 100 shares each, and who
 combined, owned sl3,l52,OOO of a total cap
 ital stock issued amounting to $95, ,OaS, 400.
 During the year the total number of
 stockholders increased to S,647, out of
 whom 6,72s owned collectively S15947, 800.
 This shows that the increase of .1.519 in
 the total number of stockholders came
 mainly from the small investor
 It is A matter of considerable import ance that the people residing along the
 lines of large railway systems are be-
 coming more and more financially inter
 ested in these companies, as evidenced by
 the fact that 2,21s of the Illinois Central
 stockholders reside in the twelve States in which the company has lines, and 1924 are residents of the State of Illinois, the home of the company.