STANDARD OIL'S 480 PER CENT

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 31, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 31.

STANDARD OIL'S 480 PER CENT.

The Standard Oil directors have just declared another dividend of 12 per cent. In March last they declared a dividend of 20 per cent. Thus far in this current year 1901, they have thus divided profits of $32,000,000, on their $100,000,000 of alleged invested capital.

The record of this leviathan among trusts discloses the following amazing facts: Up to June, 1899, the capital of the Standard Oil concern was only $10,000,000. On that amount it had been paying for eight years dividends ranging from 12 per cent. up to 33 per cent. per annum. In June, 1899, its capitalization was increased—by a stroke of the pen—to $100,000,000 of common stock, and $10,000,000 of preferred stock. Since that date it has paid dividends as follows on the new capitalization of $100,000,000, of which 90 per cent. was inflation:—

In 1899, 33 per cent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $33,000,000

In 1900, 48 per cent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48,000,000

In 1901, 32 per cent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32,000,000

Total dividends in two years . . . $113,000,000

It is not yet quite two years since the directors of this combine came together and voted to multiply by ten its then alleged capital investment of ten millions, and make it one hundred millions. And within these two years it has already paid $113,000,000 as profits on the $100,000,000 of capital investment thus created by the process of dilution.

If the original capitalization of $10,000,000 had not been thus deluged with water, the dividends actually declared upon it in the past two years would have been 333 per cent. in 1899, 480 per cent. in 1900, and for 1901—with nearly seven months of it yet to come—320 per cent.

Yet are there people who hug the delusion that Standard Oil's monopoly has immensely cheapened the price of oil. How much cheaper would it be if the Standard Oil dividends were 7 instead of 480 per cent. per annum on its actual capital invested?—New York World, May 10.