No one was robbed by the creation of wealth out of what only 20 years ago was worthless rock, open to preëmption by anybody, or by the extraction of nitrogen from the atmosphere. A large part of the present corporate wealth of the United States has originated in such ways. It is of the nature of the intangible wealth that I have previously explained. The part that is physical would be of relatively little value without the application of mind that makes it fruitful. Capital goods that can not earn anything, or can not be made to earn anything, are of no value.
Even as things have naturally developed the corporate wealth of the country is not possessed by only a few people, but rather is it distributed among many. There are many great corporations employing 10,000 men or more, whose number of employees is exceeded by the number of stockholders. Anybody may become a stockholder who is thrifty enough to buy a share of stock. Most of the great corporations urge their employees to become stockholders and try to help them.
As of Jan. 1, 1920 the census reported 1,193,878 farms with land and buildings valued at $13,772,729,610 which were mortgaged to the amount of $4,012,711,213, the ratio of debt to value being 29.1 per cent compared with 27.3 per cent in 1910. No attempt was made by the Census Bureau to secure information with regard to mortgaged debt on farms operated by managers or tenants. The average amount of mortgage debt per farm was $3,361 and the average rate of interest paid was 6.1 per cent. The total number of farms operated by their owners, with the numbers free from mortgage and mortgaged are given in the following table:
