The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1911-12-15
DISINTECRATION
OF OIL TRUST
100000 Certificates Of Shares
Sent Out to Stockholders.
GIGANTIC TASK OF SIGNING.
Machine Equipped With Eighteen
Fountain Pens Was Used--John D.
Rockefeller Was Relieved of the
Work-Care to Avoid Errors.

Rockefeller Was Relieved of the
Work-Care to Avoid Errors.
The disintegration of the oil trust
has been carried out in accordance
with the decree Of the supreme court,
and the stockholders have received
their proportionate shares in the thir-
ty-three subsidiaries which the Stand
ard Oil Company of New Jersey con-
trolled.
There are more than 5000 of these
stockholders, and consequently the
number of new certificates distributed
aggregates more than 100000. The
signing Of these certificates was in it.
self a monumental job. 1t had been
in progress for two or three months,
or ever since the accountants finished
figuring out the complicated fractional
shares belonging to the various stock
holders under the new dispensation.
Each certificate had to be signed by
two officials of the issuing company,
but the work was reduced materially
by the use of signing machine. This
is an apparatus equipped with eight
cen fountain pens. The signer writes
his name with one of the pens, and
the other pens form the same sigma
ture in somewhat the same way that
a pantagraph reproduces a picture
when the operator traces over the
original picture with it. Although
John D. Rockefeller is president of a
number Of subsidiaries as well as Of
the Standard Oil Company of New
Jersey, matters were so arranged as to
make it unnecessary for him to take
any part in the signing operation.
Dates of Annual Meetings.
With the certificates was sent out
certain amount of information con-
corning the thirty-three subsidiaries.
now to embark on the sea of competi-
tion on their own account. Ordinary
stockholders in the parent company
have never known much about these
subsidiaries, and apparently they have
never cared much about their affairs,
as profits and losses alike went into
the pot, and good big dividends ON the
total operations came out. Now, how
Z
in the various companies it is expect
ed that the stockholders will want to
know great deal more about them:~
The dates for the annual meetings Of
the thirty-four companies, including
the Standard Oil Company of New Jer-
sey, run all the way from January to
May, so that the stockholders will have
five months In which to obtain detailed
information as to their distributed
holdings unless special meetings should
be called sooner. 1t is not expected
that the people who have been in con-
troll of the combination will make any
arrangements for special meetings, as
their policy all along has been literal
compliance with the decree of the su-
preme court, neither more nor less
Whether other stockholders may take
steps for an earlier satisfaction of
the prospects are that until the regular
meeting times they will have to de-
pend for any estimate they may wish
to make as to the value of their hold
ings on the report of the commissioner
of corporations, the figures in which
represent conditions in 1905. Since
then no official statement has been
made as to any Of the subsidiaries.
Record Example In Fractions.
There has never been before so ag-
gravated case of fractional shares as
that arising from the dissolution of
the oil trust. They are usually due to
stock dividends or the issue of rights
to subscribe to new stock-say on a 10
per cent basis-so that the owner of a
single share would receive tenth of
a share and the other fractions would
be in tenths. The denominator of the
Standard OIL fractions is not only very
much larger, but 1t is quite remote
from any connection with the decimal
system. That denominator is 9S3,3S3,
which is the number of 800 shares of
stock of the Standard Oil Company of
New Jersey outstanding. The numera-
tor in the case of each company is the
same as the number of shares in 1t
owned by the parent corporation.
In order 10 make sure that there was
no mistake in any allotment, each d.
vision of fractional shares allotted to
any particular stockholder was check
ed over six times.
When it comes to the distribution Of
dividends on the fractional shares by
the thirty-three former subsidiaries the
arithmetic involved in figuring out the
a Of Of hA
checks to each Of the holders of so
many 9S3.3S3ds shares IL likely to
make the recent operation seem sim
pie, but the labor will now be divided
among the accounting departments Of
the different companies, and there is
little doubt that eventually, by one
means or another, the fractional shares
will be eliminated or consolidated.