large gates, and large gates are not to be expected without more games a week than any player can stand. Thus it is that the eleventh-hour recruits, men practically in the same class as Grange, accepted what they could get-fees that are not two per cent of what Grange is supposed to receive, always granting that his promoter is really working with him on a fifty-fifty basis.

PRO

ROFESSIONAL football will never do as a substitute for real lovers of the game, even those who are supposed to be unable to get tickets to the big college games. They know that, while there is often great skill in the passing and kicking, the game is not played as hard and as whole-heartedly as the amateur brand. And the other element that demands a "show" will be satisfied with nothing less than All-American stars. When these fail to appear, the professional game will drop back to normal, which means in most cases an attendance averaging between 4,000 and 8,000.

What will kill professional football on a large scale is ostracism. Oddly enough, this first move toward ostracism was made by the professional football coaches themselves. They have barred from membership in their organization any man connected with professional football in any capacity. Officials are now under the same ban. This strips the last rag of respectability from the game. Some may be surprised that action so drastic should be taken by men who are themselves professionals. I have known practically every member of the Coaches' Association, an organization founded by Charley Daly, of Harvard and the Army, ever since it came into being. These men have given their lives to the game, and therefore need to be adequately paid; but with few exceptions they are real amateurs at heart, working with real enthusiasm with the faculty. And with these few exceptions they hate professional football with a holy hatred.

To return for a moment to the Chicago Bears and Grange. It early became apparent that, great as he was, Grange could not play the game single-handed. So he coaxed his specially coached interferer, Britton, to leave college at the same time he did. Not satisfied himself with being a deserter, he caused another to desert. With the aid of men a year or two out of the University of Illinois, a typical Illinois-Zuppke team was built up around him. If any man should have received fifty per cent of the gate receipts, it should have been Zuppke. Zuppke, however, is not for sale.

It is well to remember, too, that University of Illinois football would have

gone serenely on its way-yes, and filled the huge memorial stadium-had Grange never appeared at Urbana. This fact was well on its way toward demonstration. The cold fact is that the very efficient publicity department, organized in good faith as a help to sports writers of the newspapers, has awakened at last to the fact that it is by way of being a Frankenstein monster.

Incidentally, I received every bit of publicity matter that came out of Urbana, and must absolve the publicity department from overplaying Grange.

Ellis Parker Butler

lives in a town which once was chiefly famous for the variety of its trees. Now it has started a real estate boom which would do credit to Florida. The man who attained fame by celebrating the guinea pig's ability to multiply has prepared for The Outlook an equally humorous report on the fecundity of apartment-houses.

An honest and persistent effort was made to gain adequate recognition for the other members of the team.

THE present strongest and most active

foe of professional football is E. K. Hall, chairman of the Football Rules Committee, and practically the successor to Walter Camp. And he has a tremendous backing. He is in even a stronger position than was Camp, since he is not writing football or any other sport for a newspaper syndicate. An able and fearless lover of amateur sport is Hall. The Rules Committee cannot dabble in eligibility rules, but it can cast the weight of its influence, which is very great, against "granged" football, and I know that this will be done.

Now a word about an element that will be powerful in time if not heard of at the moment. That is the younger schoolboy-ten to fourteen and fifteen. I have talked with many of them, and so has William S. Langford, an advisory member of the Rules Committee, and a man whose influence on college football is wide and deep. "There are youngsters in this office," he said to me, "who would not go across the street to see Grange play professional football. They have been inoculated against professionalism in sport, and it is taking. They are a tremendous bulwark of amateurism, this

coming generation." And I know of my own experience that he is right.

Grange himself has been hurt, and terribly hurt, as only those who have been close to him on the field where his promoter could not get at him know. It was one thing to be stopped in the early season and hear from his college mates in the stands the shout: "You're all right, Red; you'll be there when the time comes!" and quite another to have ringing in his ears at the Polo Grounds, "Run, you red-headed bum!"

CONS

ONSIDER the famous Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. Beaten the other day by men with little football reputation for the most part, they are not worth fifty dollars apiece per game to any promoter. And this is the reward of the beaten professional: “Listen, fella. Yuh gotta win, if yuh wanna eat from my roll."

There is a man who makes a living every fall betting on college football. He is personally much above the class of the ordinary gambler, but he is a gambler none the less. This man knows college football and college football psychology so well that he generally finishes the season with more than merely comfortable winnings. In doing this he is, of course, favored by the propensity of college men to bet at least something on their own team even when it appears to have very little chance of victory.

I asked him what he thought of professional football. His reply was characteristic: "What? Me bet on that game? Whaddya think I am? A dummy? Who'd ya git that professional stuff off of? Take it from me, it's boloney."

A white-haired, quiet, well-dressed man approached me one day in the course of the football season. I knew him to be a retired bookmaker, prizefight promoter, manager of boxers, wrestlers, and even many years ago mixed up with the crookedest of all sports, the professional runners and walkers. He conducts to-day a legitimate, respectable, and profitable business, which is why I do not mention his name.

"Do you think," he asked, "you could possibly get me a chance to buy one good seat for the Harvard-Princeton game?"

"Why," I replied, "I thought you went only to professional sports. What's the idea of wanting to see this game?"

"My friend," he said, "listen; I am going for pleasure, and when I go for pleasure I want to see something that I know to be on the level."

The thorough "de-granging" of football is well on its way, and this will have an influence on other amateur sports that are threatened from time to time.

A

By DAVID F. HOUSTON

CHANGE has been taking place

in the ownership of industry in the United States. It is highly significant. It has come silently and it has come quickly. It has come so silently and so quickly that even many close observers have not noted it or fully appreciated it. Demagogues and professional reformers, of course, have not observed it, and they continue to direct their attack at conditions which have largely passed.

This change is from family or limited ownership of big business enterprises to widely diffused or popular ownership. It has been made possible by the appearance of incorporated businesses. Broadly speaking, corporate organizations did not appear in this country until after the Civil War; and they have had their largest development within the last generation. In 1890 individual and firm manufacturers listed in the Census produced a total value of a little more than $5,000,000,000, while incorporated manufacturing enterprises, numbering 40,743, produced $7,733,000,000 worth of commodities, or about 59 per cent. Between 1904 and 1919 it is estimated that corporate manufacturing organizations increased more than 80 per cent; and therefore, while individual enterprises in 1919, numbering 138,000, produced $3,500,000,000 worth of commodities, incorporated businesses, numbering 91,000, produced approximately $55,000,000,000 worth, or nearly 80 per cent. It is probably safe to say that to-day 90 per

cent of the business of manufacturing, mining, and quarrying, and of railroads, public utilities, and banks, is carried on by corporations.

These corporate organizations, with their enormous resources and output, so far from shutting the door of opportunity to people of small means, and particularly the laborers, have, as a matter of fact, opened the door of opportunity to them and furnished them a chance to become owners. In earlier days, when business was transacted by individuals or firms, there was no desire on the part of the owners to admit outsiders to the

1 See editorial comment elsewhere.-The Editors.

businesses. The public was not invited to become interested; and very few people of small means had the funds required for participation. Towards the close of the last century a number of the large concerns began to seek to increase the number of those financially interested in them. Progress was made in this direction, but it was small compared with that which was made during the World War and which has been increasingly witnessed since the war.

The operations of many businesses are now on a vast scale. They necessitate large amounts of new capital for development. Since the war the incomes of big investors, in large measure, have been taken by the Government through taxation. The experience of the Government in floating Liberty Bonds demonstrated that there are vast sums in the hands of the small investors of the Nation which the small investors of the Nation which can be attracted to sound productive enterprises; and therefore managers of big businesses, desiring to broaden their financial foundation, have more and more recognized the necessity and wisdom of appealing to the small investors. It has become the settled policy of many corporate businesses to promote their ownership, not only by their own employees, but also by the public generally. They have devised special plans and machinery to interest employees and investors and to aid them to become owners and capitalists.

IN this movement the American TeleN this movement the American Tele

phone and Telegraph Company and its Associated Companies of the Bell System have been leaders. The Bell System has as its settled policy not only to invite its own employees but also people generally to become owners in the Sys

tem.

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company organized the Bell Telephone Securities Company to aid small investors especially to become its owners. With the co-operation of the Associated Companies of the Bell System, the Securities Company has been presenting the facts concerning the stock of the American Telephone and Telegraph

Company to investors, indicating its safety as an investment and how it can be purchased in the market. Under the plans formulated, it facilitates the purchase of such stock either for single cash payments or in installments. The purchase of the stock in the market or its acquisition through the purchase of rights in the case of new issues are normally the only ways in which the public may become owners in the American company, since, under the law of New York State, in which the company is. incorporated, new issues of stock must be offered to old stockholders.

THE results of the System's efforts to

interest the public in becoming owners have been striking. Within the last four years five of the Associated Companies have offered preferred stock to the public within their territories. In the aggregate there was offered by them approximately $65,000,000 worth. In three of the territories-the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, the Wisconsin Telephone Company, and the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of Baltimore City-banks and investment houses co-operated in the distribution of the stock. Using all their normal machinery to reach their clients, they took applications from 8,288 investors, while the employees in the three companies concerned took applications from 44,400 people. In the case of the other two companies-the New York Telephone Company and the Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania-applications were taken only by the employIn a very few days, through the employees, 197,264 persons applied for 1,421,599 shares. In the five preferred stock operations 249,960 small investors applied for a total of 1,806,219 shares.

ees.

At the beginning, in the work of aiding small investors to secure stock of the American Company in the market, they were told that they could secure the aid of bankers and brokers and purchase the stock through them. It soon developed that very few people had experience in dealing in securities, and had few or no banking connections or experience. Peo

ple of small means generally are not only unacquainted with investment processes, but they are shy of such an undertaking. They began to ask whether they could not secure the stock directly through the telephone employees. Plans were therefore made under which they could have their orders taken by telephone employees and executed by the Securities Company, the company buying the stock in the market at the prevailing price, paying the brokers the normal commission, and charging nothing for its own services.

In the three years of this activity the results have been as striking as those in connection with the preferred stock operations. To date' 133,278 individuals have purchased in the market 972,718 shares, involving an expenditure of about $125,000,000. Since the plan of handling the orders directly through telephone agencies was inaugurated in the latter part of 1923, or in less than two years, 105,716 people have purchased 553,589 shares, involving an expenditure of over $71,000,000. The average number of shares purchased for cash has been approximately 7.6 and the number on partial payments has been approximately 2.8.

This work of aiding small investors to become owners. in the Bell System has confirmed a number of impressions. It has strikingly emphasized several things. It has brought out sharply the facts that there are vast numbers of people who have saved part of their earnings and who are willing to invest it; that they will invest it in good things if they can, but at any rate that they will invest it; and that, in the large, machinery has yet to be developed which can or can afford to reach the hundreds of thousands of small investors whose aggregate savings are large.

The small investor is grateful to those who aid him safely to invest his funds. Scarcely a day passes without some letter reaching the Bell System forces strikingly evidencing this fact. Numerous instances could be given. I shall cite only one. An army officer recently casually came in contact with a Bell System official. The discussion turned on investment and on the telephone business. He discovered that it was possible for him to buy American Telephone and Telegraph Company stock on an installment plan. He made an investment. He spoke of the matter to his superior, and a few days later sent in the check of his superior for the first partial payment on twelve shares, saying: "Your monthly installment plan is certainly a boon to us

1 These figures were compiled about the middle of 1925.-The Editors.

poor mortals with a settled salary and little ready cash. I believe also your distribution of stock is the greatest bulwark against Bolshevism we have."

T

HERE has also been further developed the fact that there are large numbers of people in the Nation who work and save money, but make no use of it whatever not even depositing it in a bank, but hiding it away.

Several months ago a shabbily dressed man appeared at the headquarters office of the Securities Company and said that he understood that the company would arrange to secure stock for him. He was told that his understanding was correct. From his shabby clothing he began to pull out rolls of bills, and finally placed a surprisingly large amount of money on the desk with the request that it be invested. He said that he was afraid longer to keep it in the closet of his room for fear it would be stolen or destroyed.

Some time ago an employee of a Western Associated Company had to go into the mountains to look after a telephone line. He spent the night with a flume tender ten miles from anywhere. It developed that the flume tender got good wages, saved his money, but did not make it work for him. He had it hid. The telephone man asked him where he kept it. He said that that was his business. During the evening the conversationed turned on the telephone business, and the telephone employee said something about the stock of the American Company, its safety and its dividend

rate.

Nothing happened for several months, but one day the mountaineer came to the local office of the telephone company, placed an order for thirty-five shares of stock, and pulled the money out of his pockets. He happened to meet the telephone man who had spent the night with him, who said, "Perhaps you will now not object to telling me where you kept your money." The flume tender replied: "I kept it where I am going to put my stock certificate. I am going to put it in a box in the ground under my cabin. If I put it there, nobody can get it without getting me and it will be safe from forest fires." In due course this isolated flume tender received a letter from the president of the American Company extending him Company extending him a welcome as a stockholder. It undoubtedly pleased him. Later he received a letter inclosing a proxy. He thought that the president of the company who had welcomed him as a stockholder should receive the proxy, so he walked ten miles down the mountains and ten miles back up the mountains in order to make sure that the president of his company got the proxy.

He

One day a laborer went to the commercial office of a local company in the West. He said a young woman had told him to see the manager of that office. The telephone employee said: "I am the manager. What can I do for you?" The reply was, "You can tell me all about American Telephone and Telegraph Company stock, and then some." was given all the necessary information. He thanked the manager and went out. The manager imagined that he might be an applicant for two or three shares. The next morning when he reached his office the laborer was waiting. As before, he had on his faded flannel shirt and his trousers and shoes were covered with lime. He pulled out of his pockets $11,600 and said, "Put her in." The manager told him he would do his best for him, and said: "Perhaps you had better give me your telephone number." The workman replied, "I have no telephone number." "Well, then, what is your line of business?" the manager asked. "I have no line of business. I am a hod-carrier, and a mighty good one, see?" The stock was purchased for him and in due time a certificate was delivered to him.

NCIDENTALLY, it appears that these

IN

people who become owners in the Bell System develop a very keen interest in it and they inform themselves about the business and its problems. But they do more. They develop a very alert interest in the care of the property. These instances are illustrative. A new stockholder himself wrote: "If people own a share of stock in your company, they not only have an interest in the service and the personnel, but also in the upkeep and maintenance of their own office or residence equipment, giving it better attention than they would otherwise."

A blind man several years ago became a stockholder, having bought five shares. Soon after he appeared at a local office and asked for the manager, saying: "I am now an owner of this company. I have found out that my neighbor has been trying to get telephone service for over three months. As an owner, I would like to know why you have not furnished him service." The manager explained that there were no telephone facilities in the neighborhood and that to give his neighbor service then would necessitate an expenditure of $400 or $500. The new owner was convinced that the company was right. He emphatically said: "As one of your owners, I would not sanction your giving service at such a cost. I will go back and explain to the customer that he should wait until the new cable is installed."

An employee went into the office of a

tions could be given, but these must suffice.

busy doctor. He noticed that the receiver of the telephone was bandaged with tape. He spoke to the doctor about And so it is that the Bell System famthe patient, and said that he would take ily of owners grows. To-day it is the steps to see that he got a new receiver. most popularly owned enterprise in the The doctor thanked him, but informed world. The American Telephone and him that he had repaired the receiver for Telegraph Company has a larger army of the reason that he was an owner of the owners than any other company in the business, was interested in the protection world. At present it has more than 358,world. At present it has more than 358,of the property, and thought that by 000 stockholders. Included in this are doing as he had he was aiding in effect- over 60,000 Bell System employees; and, ing economies. in addition, more than 155,000 emNumerous other illuminating illustra- ployees are paying for nearly 600,000

shares of stock. There are also about 22,000 outside owners of the common stock of Associated Companies and more than 161,000 owners of preferred stock of such companies. It is estimated that approximately 215,000 people or institutions are financially interested in the Bell System through ownership of its bonds. Without excluding duplications, there is therefore an army of approximately 540,000 common and preferred stockholders of the Bell System, to which may be added the 215,000 owners of bonds. It is probably safe to say that 650,000 individuals, excluding duplications, own Bell Telephone securities-an army seven times as great as that of Meade's at Gettysburg. This number of owners exceeds the population of any city in America except seven. It exceeds the population of Pittsburgh, San Francisco, or Buffalo, and is only a little less than that of Boston.

Who are these owners? Who are these capitalists? It is obvious that, as a rule, they are people of small means. Of the owners of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the average holding is about 26 shares. About 128,000 own five shares or less. Nearly 342,000 hold less than one hundred shares each. No individual or institution owns as much as 1 per cent and the twenty largest holders own less than 5 per cent.

These owners represent a literal crosssection of American society. They include bankers, lawyers, engineers, manufacturers, and merchants, but they also include laborers of every class, teachers, housewives, and farmers. There is scarcely an occupation which is not represented. There is given on this page a classified list of 118,799 people who applied for shares of preferred stock of three of the Associated Companies, and also of 88,515 of those for whom has been arranged the purchase of shares of the American Company in the market.

Sof

O far as can be seen, there is no limit in America to this development of popular ownership. Corporate business will grow. The number of corporations will increase. The policy of inviting general ownership will doubtless persist. The only limit would appear to be that placed by the willingness of the laborers of every class to work, to exercise will power, to save, and to invest prudently. With popular ownership will come a fuller realization of the fact that this is the road to economic independence and to the ownership of one's self, and that social progress cannot come through the destruction of capitalism, but rather through the conversion of workers also