The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1948-07-16

make everything from parCS ana Doules OF
trucks and autos to household appliances and
railroad locomotives. The parent corpora
ton of General Motors also owns a substan-
tial or controlling interest in Bendix Aviation,
North American Aviation, steamship lines,
chemical companies, taxi-cab companies, real
estate companies, and huge finance corpora
tions.
General Motors Corporation, in turn is
part of the DUPONT group which controls
three other major parent corporations u. S.
Rubber DUPONT, and National Bank of De-
troit On the board of directors of each of
these corporations sit representatives of many
other interest groups who control other cor
porations One of the General Motors di-
rectors, for example, is George Whitney,
president of J. p. Morgan & Co., and a di-
rector of sixteen corporations including Ken
necott Copper, Continental OIL and New
York Central r. r. The j. p. Morgan cor
poration group includes fourteen major in
dustriaI corporations Qike u. S. Stee),
twelve major public utility corporations like
American Telephone & Teelgraph) eight
major railway systems (like New York Cen
traD, and three major New York banks.
General Motors also works very closely
with Standard Oil of New Jersey, which is
the largest corporation in the Rockefeller
corporation group. Standard Oil of New
Jersey and GIN each owns so percent of the
stock in the Ethyl Corporation. The Rookie
Teller group, like j. p. Morgan and DUPONT,
controls whole series of other corporations
And so it goes Just one big happy family
In the case of General Motors, DUPONT in
terests own about % percent of the voting
stock, more than enough to control policy
since under GIN bylaws, 30 percent is now
majority. Alfred p. Sloan, the acknowl-
edged head of GIN, is also DUPONT director.
T,nn Il a.
are also on the DUPONT board.
For most corporations, however, the stock
ownership is not nearly that complete. Most
boards of directors own from 3 to 5 percent
OF the stock-which usually amounts to mil
hons OF dollars and is always far greater than
the average holding, but which is far from a
majority holding Although these directors
together own a small percentage of the total
voting stock, their positions are very secure
Boards of directors are elected at their
annual stockholders meetings. Each share
OF common stock usually has the privilege of
one vote. One of the best publicized meet
lngs is that of u. S. Steel. 1t is held at Ho-
boken New jersey and the corporation sup
plies free lunch. In May, 1913, despite the
free lunch, only 800 U. s. Steel stockholders
gathered out of a possible 100000. In other
words, .OO1 percent of the stockholders at
tended the one meeting to be held during
the entire year of 1913.
Some corporations require that majority
OF the total shareholders elect the board. In
these cases the board of directors circularizes
proxy statements to stockholders at the cor
poratlon's expense. These proxy statements
usually give the shareholders voting power
to an officer of the corporation or to the
board OF directors. In the case of American
Telephone q Telegraph, over 80 percent of
the votes cast are by proxy This ie cbarao
terlstic of most corporations
With this ''proxy-democracy," only the
weathiest of stockholders can ever hope to
contest board of directors election. IT in
wolves sending out hundreds of thousands of
letters trying to convince the stockholders to
give their proxies" to the challenging proup
rather than to the board Of directors This
costs thousands of dollars. In addition, this
costs thousands Of dollars. In addition, since
he average stakeholder even under the best
state laws can get only very limited look at
he cornorafiop'o booLo fha al