Just as the Corporation’s capital, wealth, and resources had never before been approached by any industrial organization so its board of directors surpassed in aggregate wealth that of any other company. The list of the men who guided the Corporation’s destinies included J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and a host of others whose gigantic fortunes were exceeded only by those of the two kings of finance named. The others were: Elbert H. Gary, H. H. Rogers, Charles M. Schwab, Robert Bacon, Edmund C. Converse, Francis H. Peabody, Percival Roberts, Jr., Charles Steele, William H. Moore, Norman B. Ream, Peter A. B. Widener, James H. Reed, Henry Clay Frick, William Edenborn, Marshall Field, Daniel G. Reid, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Alfred Clifford, Clement A. Griscom, William E. Dodge, Nathaniel Thayer, and Abram S. Hewitt. Their fortunes, if it were possible to add them together, would amount to a sum greater even than the huge capital of the “Steel Trust.” Of the original directorate of the Corporation only seven still survive and only two are still directors. These are Gary and Roberts. Charles M. Schwab was chosen president of the Corporation, Arthur F. Luke treasurer, and Richard Trimble secretary. Elbert H. Gary became chairman of the Executive Committee, and with him were Charles Steele, Percival Roberts, and Edmund C. Converse. A Finance Committee was also appointed with Robert Bacon at its head, and H. H. Rogers, Norman B. Ream, Elbert H. Gary, and P. A. B. Widener as the other members. The salaries of the president and of the chairman of the Executive Committee were placed at $100,000 each. It is hardly to be wondered at that many prophets declared the new company was foredoomed to failure. Its very size, they claimed, would render it unwieldy, and it would collapse of its own weight. And there was a matter of something like half a billion dollars of common stock represented by no tangible assets, pure water it was claimed. It was questioned if dividends could ever be paid on this. How could Morgan ever have been induced to back so great and so impracticable an enterprise? Many asked this question, and found no satisfactory reply. Some thought the banker had over-reached himself at last, but the majority were convinced that the organization of the Steel Corporation was merely a prodigious stock-jobbing scheme to put money into the pockets of Morgan and his associates--and that, as such, it would prove eminently successful. Few there were who had faith in the “Steel Trust” as a practical business proposition.