166 WILLIAM R. MERRIAM 



Attention has already been called to the lack of com- 

 parability, by industries, between these figures and those for 

 property holdings. The totals for all industries, however, 

 are entirely comparable, and an idea of the relation of cap- 

 italization to the property of the combinations may be ob- 

 tained by a consideration of these totals. 



The total property of the 2147 reporting plants con- 

 trolled by the various combinations, including land, buildings, 

 machinery, tools and implements, cash, bills receivable, etc., 

 etc., is valued at $1,458,522,573, of which $24,717,653 repre- 

 sents the property of the reporting idle plants. The entire 

 capital issued by the 183 combinations which operate these 

 plants is as follows: 



Bonds $ 216,412,759 



Preferred stock 1,066,525,963 



Common stock 1,802,262,146 



Total $3,085,200,868 



To this should be added the capital stock issued by the 

 United States Steel company over and above the capital 

 stock of those of its constituent companies which were in- 

 cluded in the census statistics. This additional sum is $484,- 

 414,940, comprising $298,189,000 of bonds, $93,112,970 of 

 preferred stock, and the same amount of common stock. 

 This makes a total capitalization of $3,569,615,808. The 

 valuation of the land, buildings, and other assets, upon which 

 this capitalization is based is $1,458,522,573. This figure 

 does not include the value of property owned by two combina- 

 tions in the United States Steel company which do not receive 

 consideration in the census statistics, but the fact will have to 

 be ignored. It will be noted that the total property value 

 lacks $216,000,000 of equaling the value of the bonds and pre- 

 ferred stock, so that this sum, plus the value of the common 

 stock, a total of $2,018,000,000, seems to represent good will, 

 franchises, and other intangible assets. Probably a good 

 deal of this is what is known as "pure water." The public 

 will be expected to pay more or less interest on this watered 

 stock, but to what extent time alone will determine. In 

 many cases there never will be any interest. In other in- 



