New Britain herald., 1923-01-13

l per of Kansas and the farmers bloc,
 there is one of man who has made
 a handsome fortune in a comparatively
 few years, for he is only s7. His first
 venture in the publishing business is said to have been with an investment
 of $l,000 which he had saved from
 his salary as newspaper reporter,
 and with which he made the first pay
 nent on newspaper in Topeka. Would anyone venture to.argue that his profits should always have been limited to an interest return on that
 $l,m! He is the reputed owner to-
 day of two dailies, six weeklies, three
 semi-monthlies and two monthlies,
 several of them agricultural papers of
 wide circulation and large net earn
 ings. Their aggregate valuation runs
 into the millions, and as in such cases
 the big accretions are made in the
 later years of a mans career, when
 the increasing earnings double up
 quickly, the Senator is in fair way to rank high up among plutocrats.
 His business of giving information and advice to farmers is also highly competitive. Emerson's immortal say
 ing that if any man could make a mouse trap better than any other, the world would beat a path to his door, is illustrated by the millions of farm CTS who have beaten a path to Editor Capper's door, looking for advice. Here again it is demonstrated that some men do not get richer than other men by charging higher prices, but by giving the public what it wants. It is painful to think that if Senator Cap- per had incorporated his first invest ment and capitalized it at cost, then continued to operate his multiplied yen- lures by means of the same corpora ton, without increasing the amount of stock until 1922, and had then is- | sued more stock to cover the acquired | assets, he probably would have been pilloried in MT. Frear's list and made ineligible for leadership of the farm bloc.
 It is needless to name other exam pies, but there is scarcely a town in the country which does not have a business that is a leading factor in the community and has been built up bv means of surplus earnings. It is impossible 10 name a man whose name is prominently identified with the development of any great industry whose career has not been made pos sible by that means. And such careers have been heretofore regarded as cred itable to the men achieving them.
 Ownership of Standard Oil
 The idea that Standard Oil is mainly owned or controlled by one man or family should be disposed of by MT. Teagle's statement before the La Toilette committee. Even before the dissolution there were 60O0 stock holders. He said of the ownership:
 Prior to 1911 the stocks of all the com osnies were held together. through their by the Standard Oil Company (New yersey), which prevented separate ,rai processes of disinteSration. The de .ree, to do away with this condition. di- ,ecfed that the stocks of the subsidiary companies be distributed pro rata among he stockholders of the holding company. While. at the moment of distribution. all he companies had identical stock lists. these Iteiy to operate and have been operating .ver since.
 AS illustrative of this, at the time of dis ribution, the Standard Oil Company (New fersey) had 6,07s stockholders. Twelve of hese held more than one per cent each of