In speaking to the same point as applied to the United States Express Company, Mr. Atwood calls attention to the fact that 55 per cent of its “stockholders” have entered suit to wind up the company’s affairs on charges of mismanagement by its dominating officers. Mr. Atwood further writes: Although the gravest of charges of mismanagement and waste of assets have repeatedly been made against the directors of the United States Express Company, a profit of almost 15 per cent was earned by the company on the capital invested in the express business in the year 1909. This profit would have been still greater had general trade been normal, and had there not been a hiatus between the loss of one large contract and the securing of another. That the stockholders have not received all the profits proves nothing. Millions have gone into unnecessary real estate investment and large salaries have been paid, but earnings on the capital actually invested have clearly shown that even under a management whose good faith and ability is being challenged in the courts there is an ample return. As long ago as 1875 a writer in Harper’s Magazine said the express business had already created fifty millionaires, a statement which does not tax the credulity of anyone who casts a glance at the dividend record of these companies. To use the calmly judicial words of the Census Bureau: “In no other business is it probable that so little money, comparatively, is invested where the gross receipts are so large.” We have seen that new capital is not a necessity of the express business. Unlike the railroads, new security issues to raise capital are never sold to the investing public. The cappers for railroad and express interests, keep the atmosphere agitated with talk about the “uncertainty and irregularity” of the quantity of express matter to be carried, “the excessive taxes paid,” etc. In answer to such bubble, Mr. Atwood has this to say: While this may be theoretically true, the experience of years has shown that the patronage of these companies has been fairly regular, remunerative and growing. Not only will a study of the gross receipts prove this contention, but further confirmation will be found in the remarkable series of excessive dividends. “We do not feel that any extravagant return should be permitted upon the business of these companies,” said the Interstate Commerce Commission in Kinde _v._ Adams _et al._, “for it involves none of the elements which entitle an investment to a high return.”