Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/234

212 The remainder is available for distribution as interest, expenses, and dividends. If the surplus carried as a suspense account proves to be permanent it will appear eventually as an increment of the inventory of the wealth of the country and the earnings therefrom will be distributed as expense and dividends. If the surplus becomes a deficit there will be no such distribution; the country will have become poorer in its inventory.

No correct analysis of what happened to the corporations between 1913 and 1921 could be made without studies of their individual affairs and valuations of their properties. However, some general ideas may be formed that will not be far out of the way. The Wall Street Journal of July 6, 1921, tabulated data of 140 industrial companies over a period of six years. This list comprises the big industrial corporations of the United States with but few exceptions. The illuminating feature of this table is the summary of earnings retained each year after payment of dividends, or “deficits if dividends exceeded earnings.” These data are as follows:

At the end of 1914 these companies had “working capital” to the amount of $1,962,351,675; and at the end of 1920 they had $4,479,863,627; an increase of $2,517,511,952 according to their own figuring. “Working capital” includes “cash and investment securities,