They have escaped the criticism which has been directed against us, who with our old-fashioned and conservative notions have continued without such expansion of capitalization.
There is nothing strange or miraculous in all this; it was all done through this natural law of trade development.

It is what the Astors and many other large landholders did.
If a man starts in business with $1,000 capital and gradually increases his property and investment by retaining in his concern much of his earnings, instead of spending them, and thus accumulates values until his investment is, say, $10,000, it would be folly to base the percentage of his actual profits only on the original $1,000 with which he started.

Here, again, I think the managers of the Standard should be praised, and not blamed.

They have set an example for upbuilding on the most conservative lines, and in a business which has always been, to say the least, hazardous, and to a large degree unavoidably speculative.

Yet no one who has relied upon the ownership of this stock to pay a yearly income has been disappointed, and the stock is held by an increasing number of small holders the country over.
THE MANAGEMENT OF CAPITAL We never attempted, as I have already said, to sell the Standard Oil stock on the market through the Stock Exchange.