WHO OWNS THE RAILROADS 341 



way shares, points unmistakably to a very widely diffused 

 ownership. Nothing more strikingly illustrates the extent 

 to which this diffused ownership may exist in some of our 

 leading railways, than the statement of Mr. J. J. Hill to the 

 effect that "when the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad 

 was taken into the Northern Securities company some 2,000 

 of its 18,000 stockholders owned five shares each and 300 

 owned one share each." The eastern trunk lines were re- 

 ported to have had their stock distributed among 99,829 

 shareholders in the year 1896, and the Pennsylvania railroad 

 company reported that 40 per cent of its shareholders were 

 women. 



One other exception to the above averages is pertinent 

 to our discussion. This exception, while it does not in the 

 least disprove the wide diffusion of stock ownership indicated 

 by the foregoing process of subdivision, does tend to show, on 

 the contrary, a large degree of concentration of stock in indi- 

 vidual hands. To rely merely upon the preceding averages, 

 it is clear, would prove inadequate for our purpose, since they 

 do not afford an exact criterion of the actual proportion of 

 stock held by the different shareholders. The concentration 

 of stock ownership in individual hands, as indicated by these 

 averages, becomes all the greater when we remember, first, 

 that the above tables fail to show the unequal distribution of 

 the stock among the shareholders of any given road, which 

 as a practical matter of fact we know exists; and, secondly, 

 that they do not take cognizance of the very common fact 

 that the well-to-do stockholders of one railway, though own- 

 ing far more than their proportionate share, also own stock 

 in a large number of other roads. 



How unequal the stock of a particular railway may be 

 distributed among its holders is well illustrated in the case of 

 the Fitchburg and New England railways. With the excep- 

 tion of the Boston and Albany, the Boston and Maine, and 

 the Old Colony railways, the Fitchburg Railroad company 

 represents the lowest average stockholding of the roads of 

 Table I. Yet 624 of its stockholders, or those residing in 

 New Hampshire, own but $871,300 of its $24,360,000 of capi- 

 tal stock; while 1,119 of its 5,935 stockholders own but 



