12 AGRICULTURE, MANUFACTURING, COMMERCE 



$6,666,000,000; fifty directorships in eleven insurance companies 

 having total assets of $2,646,000,000; one hundred and fifty-five 

 directorships in thirty-one railroad systems having a total capi- 

 talization of $12,193,000,000 and a total mileage of one hundred 

 sixty-three thousand, two hundred; six directorships in two 

 express companies and four directorships in one steamship com- 

 pany with a combined capital of $245,000,000 and gross income of 

 $97,000,000; ninety-eight directorships in twenty-eight manufac- 

 turing, producing, and trading corporations having a total capital- 

 ization of $3,583,000,000 and total gross annual earnings in excess 

 of $1,145,000,000; and forty-eight directorships in nineteen public 

 utility corporations having a total capitalization of $2,826,000,000 

 and total gross annual earnings in excess of $428,000,000; in all 

 seven hundred and forty-six directorships in one hundred and 

 thirty-four corporations with total resources or capitalization of 

 $25,325,000,000. It is impossible to grasp the magnitude of this 

 figure, but it may help to compare it with the value of all the farm 

 land in the United States in 1900, which was but $28,475,000,000. 

 The interlocking nature of this concentrated control may be 

 illustrated by the following examples. The firm of J. P. Morgan 

 & Co., of New York, had three directorships in the Northern 

 Pacific Railway. This firm also had three directorates in the Astor 

 Trust Co. and the Astor Trust Co. had two directorates in the 

 Northern Pacific, as well as two in the Southern Pacific. In brief, 

 the firm of J. P. Morgan & Co. had twenty-three directorships in 

 thirteen banks and trust companies, which companies in turn had 

 fifteen directorships in the Northern Pacific Railroad and eight 

 in the Southern Pacific. To illustrate further the concentrating 

 tendency in banking, railroading, and manufacturing, attention is 

 called to the fact that the firm of J. P. Morgan & Co., together with 

 four neighboring banks in the city of New York, held three hundred 

 and forty-one directorships in one hundred and twelve corporations 

 having aggregate resources or capitalization of $22,245,000,000. 

 To carry the illustration of this tendency yet a step further, the 

 fact may be cited that Mr. J. P. Morgan testified, 1 that he named 

 the entire board of directors of the United States Steel Corpora- 

 tion. This was a corporation capitalized at $1,400,000,000, with 

 some fifteen thousand stockholders, yet Mr. Morgan, owning but 

 a small fraction of the stock, found the power of control of the 

 corporation entrusted very largely to his judgment. Thus the 



1 Dec. 19, 1912. 



