Probably the majority of the great steam railroads, street railways, and gas companies that were organised during the last quarter of the nineteenth century inflated their capitalisation to a greater or less extent. Since the year 1900 the trusts have been the chief exponents and illustrations of the practice. According to President Van Hise, "the majority of the great concentrations of industry have gone through two or three stages of reorganisation, the promoters and financiers each time profiting greatly, sometimes enormously."[194] For example; in 1908 the "water" in the American Tobacco Company was estimated by the Commissioner of Corporations at $66,000,000; the United States Shipbuilding Company diluted its twelve and one-half million dollars of capital with more than fifty-five millions of "water"; the United States Steel Corporation contained at the time of its organisation fictitious capital to the amount of $500,000,000; and at least fifty per cent. of the common stock of the American Sugar Refining Company represented no actual investment.[195] Owing to the penetrating and widespread criticism, and the government investigations and prosecutions of the last few years, the practice of stockwatering has very greatly diminished. Perhaps the most flagrant recent example is that of the Pullman Company, which according to the testimony of R. T. Lincoln before the Federal Commission on Industrial Relations, distributed among its stockholders $100,000,000 in stock dividends between 1898 and 1910.