Charles LeRoy Lewis - Special Collections - University of Baltimore

LEWIS ;099 I:2:36
something but don't have the money, so I put the money up so
you can do it, and we split the profit. In Russia the govern-
ment does it and they give you what they want back. The man
who produces don't get any more than the man that don't
produce during the whole business. In other words, a man
can have all the abilf ty in the world, but if he can' t
borrow moneyF he can't do the job. It's just like the men
you take today; you have men today small contractors that
built hames; you have to give them so much down so they can
get the foundations in. Then aftex they get the foundation
in, you give them so much money to build the floor, you
give them so much money as you progress with the building.
And if you didn't do that, they couldn't build; they don't
have the money.
It's the same way; it" one of the biggest conceptions
with the American public: they read the headlines of our
newspapers, which is very misleading; they'l tell you how
many million dollars . . . they'll say General Motors made,
but they forget to tell you how many million stockholders.
And it's news to a lot of people; they don" want to believe
you when you tell them that none of our big companies, such
as Chrysler, General Motors, IBM, Exxon - any of those big
companies - nobody owns as much, no individual owns as much
as one-half of one percent of their stock.
Our biggest company in the United States is International
Telephone and Telegraph; the biggest corporation in the world.
md nobody owns as mueh as 25/100 percent of thefr stock.