The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-08-18

serious matter even for the group of stu pendously rich men who compose the com pany.
 The suit however. which threatens the existence of the corporation is the one brought by the federal government in Mis- souri for the dissolution of the company. The company can pay all of the enormous fines to which 1t is liable and survive, but if the dissolution suit should be success ful there would be no way of getting around it.
 John D. Rockefeller declares that he will be dead long before the fine of $29- 0oo,0@ recently imposed in Chicago will be paid, and many persons agree with him, but If the corporation evades this there other ways of reaching it. Imprison- ment for the Standard Oil men would be a sure remedy, Cardinal Gibbons remarks, significantly.
 The Standard Oil has a surplus reserve fund which runs into enormous figures Conservative estimates place it at S2O0, ,00g- GOO, and less conservative estimates place it ah high as S500,000,00O. What 1t actu- ally is is q secret which has been guarded with extraordinary care, the knowledge being confined to not more than five or six men.
 Between 1882 and 1906 the Standard Oil paid out in dividends, according to a recent official compilat tion by the United States government, the enormous sum of $o51 ,922, 50. For several years the pol icy of the company has been to distribute n hnt in dividends and add the other 40 per cent to its surplus funds.
 The actual earnings or profits for the full period between 1882 and 1906 have never been disclosed. It is known, how. ever, that the total profits from 1882 to 1896 were s244 O26, 4s5. In that period the dividend distributions amounted to $751; 490 460, leaving s79, 536025 for the surplus fund.
 The period of the Standards greatest earnings has been since 1896. In the ten years its dividend distributions amount to $3S7, 432 446. For only three of those years, 1903, 1904 and 1905, are its profits known. In 1903 1t distributed S42,877 5l6 in dividends and In that year it's profits were sS1 ,0jO. In 1904 it distributed s35, ,401. .7SS in dividends and it's profits were $6l ,5OO,000 In 1905 1t distributed in dividends $39, ,335, ,320 and It's profits were S57,O00000.
 For the three years it's profits amounted to $199, 800, GOO, while It's dividend distribd- tions were 17,614.624 leaving in that pe- riod alone $S2.1S5,376 to be added to the surplus. an average of s27 .395,1 ,125 year.
 If the surplus additions averaged that amount for ten years, it would make total of $273951 ,250, which added to the surplus fund up to 1896 would make grand total of 1858, 4S7 ,275.
 With q surplus reserve fund of more than S5O,OOO0O0, the Standard could pay fines amounting to s1o5, 100000. and still be highly solvent and with a surplus lar ger than that of any other corporation in the country, but its prestige as the dominant power in railroading and in ln- dustrialism would be seriously crippled.
 That the Standard oil crowd is alarmed is shown by the public statements of John D. Rockefeller. The policy of the present administration Che never uses the name of RoosevelD, he says, will plunge the country into panic. Then with the utmost sang froid MT. Rockefeller tells the coun-