trol them, are economically disfranchised, because the stockholders in
all large corporations almost never influence the management of their
property, and as a rule do not know anything about it. They don't because
they can't. A few years ago a very large number of people were much
worried by the exposure of some scandalous doings by the managers of
certain great life-insurance companies. They would have been very glad to
combine and choose better managers if they could; but they couldn't. Laws
were passed for the purpose of enabling the policy-holders to select their
trustees, but the only result has been a ridiculous and rather expensive
fiasco. As in politics, the rank and file select the managers selected for
them by a few men who understand the situation. When many thousands of
people own stock in a concern, they live all over this continent and in
foreign parts, and it is a physical impossibility to bring them together.
They do not know one another, and very few of them know much about the
affairs of the concern, and if they know anything of the candidates that
may be suggested, it is generally only by hearsay.

How many of the eighty-eight thousand stockholders in the Pennsylvania
Railroad, for instance, have ever attended a meeting? For that matter, how
many of them have ever studied the report of the railroad? Not one in ten
could spare the time to read it, perhaps not one in a hundred could master
it. The report may be read in a few hours; it would take as many months,
if not years to verify it. Very nearly half these stockholders are women;
the average holding is 120 shares, (par $50), and one-sixth of the
stockholders own less than 10 shares each. Ten thousand of them are
abroad. Much stock is held by trustees, whose beneficiaries are probably
very numerous, and totally incompetent to understand railroad management.
There are also more than twenty thousand holders of stock in subsidiary
corporations controlled by the Pennsylvania Railroad. No one can tell the
number of bondholders; perhaps there are as many as there are employees,
making an aggregate of almost half a million.

* * * * *

Sometimes trustees abuse their office; but on the whole they have done
pretty well, and whether they have or not, there is no other way in which
large capitals can be managed. All civilization rests on confidence. Such
a vast fabric could not be built on confidence unless confidence was
deserv