158 CHARLES S. GLEED 



serious objection or criticism; but railway corporations have 

 been severely criticised for large capitalization because of the 

 theory, more or less firmly fixed in the public mind, that the 

 public has a right to limit railway earnings to a low rate of 

 return on the actual money invested in the property. In late 

 years most of the newly organized industrial corporations 

 have adopted the much paper plan. This is probably done on 

 some dim theory that ten pretty pieces of paper v/ill sell for 

 more than one. Shares of stock stand for only fractions of 

 ownership. If such shares were expressed directly in fractions 

 instead of circuitously in dollars, perhaps much of the charm 

 of high capitalization would disappear. Thus one share of 

 United States Steel corporation stock looks like one hundred 

 dollars. If such share were described as one eleven millionth 

 of the whole, it would not be so attractive. The new steel 

 company chose the high capitalization plan and, with its one 

 billion one hundred millions of stock and its three hundred 

 and four millions of first mortgage bonds, now undisputedly 

 holds the center of the stage in the corporation world. 



Few casual observers comprehend to what an extent iron 

 has become king. Nobody knows when iron was unknown, 

 yet the fact remains that the modern use of it makes the an- 

 cient use of it seem ridiculously small. Five hundred years 

 ago the world used, as nearly as the guessers can tell, only a 

 few thousand tons a year — say fifty thousand tons. The use 

 now is near fifty million tons. In the United States the first 

 iron workings were operated between the years 1600 and 1650, 

 the annual output for that period averaging about one thou- 

 sand tons. Last year the output of this country alone was 

 about fourteen million tons, which put us about five million 

 tons ahead of our chief competitor. Great Britain. This 

 brief reference to statistics is enough to show the possible 

 foundation for such a corporation as the one we are consider- 

 ing, though a word as to why the use of iron has so wonder- 

 fully increased in such a mere instant of time will not be out 

 of place. The discovery of the process of treating iron so as 

 to make steel worked a revolution in the adaptability of iron 

 to industrial uses. Thus a steel rail is as much superior to an 

 iron rail as a steel razor is to an iron razor. In the quarter of 



