$300,000,000, compared with $275,000,000 in 1907. Current liabilities were $60,000,000 in 1912 and $45,000,000 in 1907, but cash increased from $54,000,000 to $67,000,000. The Steel stockholder has, therefore, good evidence that his company is being managed with great sagacity in all departments.
An exhaustive study of the United States Steel Corporation would require a great many charts similar to the foregoing, but those given probably bring out clearly the main results in each annual report. The use of graphics to drive home statistics is yet in its infancy, and the next few years will doubtless witness a rapidly growing employment. There seems no good reason why any management, desiring to tell the whole truth to its stockholders, should not adopt graphic methods to supplement, as well as to illuminate, the statistical tables.
The famous economist, Stanley Jevons, wrote in 1875:
There is much to be learnt about money before entering upon those abstruse questions, which barely admit of decided answers. In studying a language, we begin with the grammar before we try to read or write. In mathematics, we practice ourselves in simple arithmetic before we proceed to the subtleties of algebra and the differential calculus. But it is the grave misfortune of the moral and political sciences, as well shown by Mr. Herbert Spencer in his "Study of Sociology," that they are continually discussed by those who have never labored at the elementary grammar or simple arithmetic of the subject.
To-day, everyone still believes himself competent to discuss corporation finance, which is a branch of political science, in the same cheerful ignorance of the fundamentals of the subject. Everything, therefore, which will help to throw light on the dark corners of finance and make ignorance less excusable should be welcome. Never have corporation managers been more sensitive to public opinion, and if charts in annual reports make the truth more easily grasped (which they do) they will soon command an established place in corporation records.
