Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1947-06-01
More Owners
Than Workers
Five Giant Corporations
Show Stock Held
By 1854 1868
Bv WHIiam Ferris


By William Ferris
CHICAGO.-Who owns American
corporations? In many cases, large
corporations have more stockholders
than employees.
| Ownership and control, of course
are not synonymous. Ownership
may change hands many times, for
instance, but control-or manage
ment-may remain intact.
American Telephone a. Telegraph
Co. has, in round figures, 100000
employees, excluding workers of
Western Electric Co. and Bell Tele-
phone Laboratories, Inc. That's .
lot of people-but the company also
has 100000 stockholders, men, wom-
en- and institutions.
In the last census d94o) there
were - States with populations
below 100000. You could combine
the populations of Nevada. Wyoming
and Delaware and still not have as
many people as own A. T. Il T. A
city composed of A. T. & r. stock
holders alone would rank 10th In
size in the United States.
276,515 Own Big Steel"
Symbolic Of giant industry, ever
since the elder j. P. Morgan welded
it together after buying out cagey
Andrew Carnegie, is United States
Steel Corp.
big Steel" employed an average
of -276,515 men and women in the
last six months of enough
people to create a. substantial city
without even counting the relatives.
The owners are 16s, 3s2 persons
and institutions holding Big Steel
common stock and 1922 holding
the preferred. Eliminate duplica-
tioas-those who own both prefer
red and common-and the total
ownership Is spread among 22s, 470
persons.
Largest railroad in the land from
the point of view Of assets Is the
Pennsylvania. The Pennsy has 49,
l6l employees and 218,943 stock
holders. ...-
The stockholders live in every
State in the Union and in Al for
eign countries. On an average, they
own so shares, At the price ut
which the stock has been selling
recently, around $40 a share, their
individual investment is $1,000.
GIN Owners Top Workers.
Biggest of the automobile manu.
facturers is General Motors Corp.
with the exception of short period
during the war years, when the
company's employment rolls swelled
from the pressure of armament
work, GIN has had more stockhold-
ers than employees for the past II
years.
In the last quarter Of 1916 the
company had 430, 1884 stockholders.
Average number of salaried and
hourly rated employees on the pay
rolls in 1946 was 300,634.
Ownership is spread among nu-
merous small investors. About 70
per cent of the individual stock
holders hold so shares or less, and
around So per cent have holdings of
10 shares or less. No single person
owns as much as is per cent of all
GIN stock.
Over the years General Motors
has been considered a "Du Pont
company" for E. I. du Pont de Ne
mours 81 Co. owns a healthy slice of
GM-22.7 per cent of the common
stock. But Du Pont itself has nearly
1000 stockholders.
Women Outnumbered Men.
Swift 81 Co., which stems from
Gustavus Swift touring the Cape
Cod roads in his red wagon back in
the middle of the 18th century, lis
today the largest packer. It has
&C, 600 employees and 63,365 stock
holders.
More women than men own Swift.
Woman shareholders total 29,s41.
men 25,6lP, and joint accounts 1905.
Included in the Joint accounts"
are 3l5 educational, religious and
charitable institutions, old age
homes, associations, foundations
and similar groups. An old-age
home is counted as one stakeholder,
but more than just one individual
in the home may be dependent
upon successful, dividend-paying
operations of the company.
Here are flve big companies in
representative fields. Their COM
bined stockholders number 1854, 1858,
enough to make them together the
fourth largest city In the United
States.
Undoubtedly there are some dup
locations. A man may own stock in
more than one company, but this is
offset-py how much no one knows
by the great number Of people
represented by institutions.
This stock-owning group consists
|of people who have acquired some
money and who have invested 1t In
American enterprises
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