The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-11
INSIDE STORY OF
 BIG CORPORATIONS Two Million Partners Own the
 Trusts VERY FEW ARE EXCLUSIVE Even MT. Rockefeller Has $500 Part ners In Standard OiI-The United
 States Steel Corporation
 Has 10000 Partners.
VERY FEW ARE EXCLUSIVE
By sEWELL HAeeARD.

sponsible for the statement that four years ago the railroads were owned ;, by 250,0 shareholders. Now there
 are 5O0.000 owners who share the $500, 100000 disbursed in dividends. The
 shareholders average income of $500 a 1 year Is just equal to the average earn
 ings of the 100000 workers on the 1 railroads who receive $900,000,000 wages a year. Hundreds of thousands of investors own the industrial "trusts"-the Steel corporation alone
 has 10000 shareh olders An army of people has provided capital for min- 1 ing-the Lake Superior copper com l panies alone have 30,000 shareholders.
 and they represent less than quarter 1 of the copper production of the coun- I try. Hundreds of thousands of people
 own stock in minor corporate enter
 prises. All these shareholders in the corporations-the going concerns
 reach the great total of 100000. Two billion dollars of railroad securi- l ties-stoeks and bonds-are owned by
 banks and insurance companies. Every
 person who puts money in a bank and
 receives interest from the institution
 is indirectly an owner of the railroads. l The banks of the country have on their books 15,000,0 900 accounts. The savings l banks have invested $500, 900, 900 in railroad securities for their 8,500, 900 ] depositors. The life insurance com 1 panies have invested hundreds of mil l lions of dollars in railroads for the l benefit of more than 25, 100000 policy l holders. The fire, accident and guaran- l tee insurance companies own many mIl- l lions of railroad securities, which they have purchased with the premiums paid
 to them by millions of policyh olders. It is a very conservative estimate after
 massing these figures, to place the number of persons whose money is in vested in corporations at 10000 000.
 The stock of only one great corpora ton Is closely held. This is the Stan dard oil company. MT. Rockefeller owns a large minority interest, but the
 majority of the $100, 900 of stock is
 in the possession of MT. Rockefellers 5500 partners He has 500 more port
 ners now than he had before the panic put the stock on the bargain table around $400 share.
 MT. Morgan has 10000 partners in the
 steel corporation, $500 of whom are
 workers in the mills.
 The misinformed speak of the sugar trust and the Havemeyers as though they
 were interchangeable names for the same l thing, but no stock is more widely dis 1 tributed than sugar. The Havemeyers have 10000 partners.
 MT Hartman has 30OO0 partners in his western railway empire, nearly 12.000 of whom have joined him since the govern ment opened fire on him.
 The Guggenheims have nearly 10000 partners in the American Smelling and
 Refining company, and these silent part ners own a very large majority of the capital
 Eighteen thousand partners share with MT Rogers the ownership of the wonder full Anaconda and its neighboring copper mines in Butte
 The Pennsylvania lines are owned by
 nearly S0,O00 people, and so widely scat tered are the shares of this great prop erty that no single owners name stands out above the fellow-partners' in the en- terprise.
 Forty capitalists own less than a tenth of the stock of the telephone monopoly i; the other nine-tenths is owned by 24,090 1 investors.
 These facts effectuaIly disprove the as- sertion of some newspapers and many campaign speakers that a small group 1 of gentlemen carry the entire ownership 1 of our corporations around in their
 waist-coat pockets. Discussing these fig ures editorially the Times says: "At the last Presidential election the i total vote for all candidates was a little l over 13,0o0000. The total number of share l holders in the ::'going' corporations of I the country, each one entitled to vote for 1 officers, is 100000, nearly one-sixth of | the number of national electors. Here plainly is an army of great size | and efficiency voluntarily enlisted for life l in the defense of the rights of property. | If we add to these the number who di- lrectly own, or whose trustees own, the
 bonds of these corporations, we have the l impressive total of at least 20,000,O0O, that 1 is to say 50 per cent. more than the to- l tai Presidential vote, and nearly one l fourth of the population of the entire { country. Of thse vast army there are among the owners of stock some 100, 600 l women, and the proportion of bondholders | is probably considerably larger, so that I 1t is safe to say that the number of wom- I en interested in corporations is not less l than 100000. These are naturally a con- servative element in the business world, 1 but apart from that fact it is interesting | to note how far the corporations have in 1 trust the property of the class all men desire shall be carefully protected. Again i the practice of seeking to interest em-
 ployes in the shares of large corporations 1 Is growing, the United States Steel Cor | poration having some s12,O00,000 of cap | ital In the hands of 35, 900 employees con 1 stituting more than one-third of the to- 1 tai number of share owners
 | Publicity, according to the Times, is ] responsible for the enormous increase ir 1 the number of shareholders in American 1 corporations. and President Roosevelt has been the chief publicity agent. The Times 1 continues
 ''The service that Mr. Roosevelt has 1 involuntarily performed in arousing tho | public's interest in investments has beer l of nestimable value. It matters not tha1 l during these four years he has carried or ! a continuous, bitter warfare against cor l porations; that he has sent message after ! message to Congress denouncing the cor
 porations and their managers; that he has 1 brought them into the courts and chas tised them; that he has forced Congress | to make laws against them; that he ha: | declared his purpose to crush some oi
 the most powerful corporations and te
 humilate their managers; that he ha' pillored publicity the richest of the in
 dustrial and railroad captains and de
 nounced them in state papers as male factors of great wealth.
 "Through all this bitter warfare one l bo rx