vessels, cars, wharves, docks, and piers; lay and operate pipe-lines; erect and operate telegraph and telephone lines, and lines for conducting electricity; enter into and carry out contracts of every kind pertaining to his business; acquire, use, sell, and grant licenses under patent rights; purchase, or otherwise acquire, hold, sell, assign, and transfer shares of capital stock and bonds or other evidences of indebtedness of corporations, and exercise all the privileges of ownership, including voting upon the stocks so held; carry on its business and have offices and agencies therefor in all parts of the world, and hold, purchase, mortgage, and convey real estate and personal property outside the state of New Jersey. These privileges are, of course, subject to the laws of the state or country in which the company operates. If it is contrary to the laws of a state for a foreign corporation to hold real estate in its boundaries, a company must be chartered in the state. Its stock, of course, is sold to the New Jersey corporation, so that it amounts to the same thing as far as the ability to do business is concerned. It will be seen that this really amounts to a special charter allowing the holder not only to do all that is specified, but to create whatever other power it desires, except banking.[1] A comparison of this summary of powers with those granted by the South Improvement Company shows that in sweep of charter, at least, the Standard Oil Company of to-day has as great power as its famous progenitor.[2]
The profits of the present Standard Oil Company are enormous. For five years the dividends have been averaging about forty-five million dollars a year, or nearly fifty per cent. on its capitalisation, a sum which capitalised at five per cent. would give $900,000,000. Of course this is not all that the combination makes in a year. It allows an annual average of
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