Page:The fallacy of danger from great wealth.djvu/34

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THE FALLACY OF DANGER

out of interest and dividends all that is saved by those who receive interest and dividends and invested is also paid out in wages, and it will be seen how the wage-earners are interested to have big enterprises exist and have great captains of industry to create and manage them successfully. Look over the annual reports of all great industries, and the same thing is true. Dividend and interest distributions are published in the newspapers. If the amounts the railroads and other big industries pay out in wages and in materials (also all ultimately wages) were published with the same fulness, the public would get a much more accurate notion of how wealth produced by a big railroad or other industry is divided. The rich man cannot get even this small payment of interest and dividends without having these big amounts paid out in wages.

But not all recipients of dividends and interest are rich men. A late report is to the effect that the Pennsylvania Railroad Company alone has about 84,000 stockholders. The United States Steel Corporation also has enough stockholders to constitute a small army. The number of stockholders in the