STUDIES IN SECURITIES 
stock was $6.46 (on average outstanding) in 1923, $2.56 (while 
steel prices dropped $10 a ton and operations touched 319% rate) 
in 1924, $5.30 in 1925, and $7.48 in 1926. These earnings and the 
prospects now support an expectation of early dividend resump- 
tion. Fact that a balance has been earned for the common every 
year since 1909 is a sidelight on Bethlehem management. 
Capital structure of Bethlehem Steel comprises $207,906,000 
funded debt (reduced $29,200,000 net since January 1, 1925 with 
saving of $1,800,000 interest charge per annum) equal to $27.30 
per ton of ingot capacity, $97,000,000 7% cumulative preferred 
stock (simplified from three issues in 1922) or $12.70 a ton, and 
$180,000,000 common stock or $23.70 a ton. Capital ahead of the 
common is $23 a ton less than beginning 1922. 
Comparatively with U. S. Steel, under this rule-of-thumb Bethle- 
hem, rated at a third the Corporation’s capacity, has only $1 
more bonds and preferred stock and $1.30 more common stock 
per ton, and the bare bones of ingot capacity are filled out with 
finishing capacity now something like as well; in Eastern and 
Pacific markets the Sparrow’s Point, Baltimore, and South Beth- 
lehem plants have a decided freight rate advantage. 
At the present level (50) the Bethlehem Steel common stock equity 
Is priced not materially above the lowest (37) in a decade, not- 
withstanding that $164 per share applicable assets seem nearer a 
dividend yield with greater earning ability for speculation. 
Chicago & North Western Ry. 
The map speaks better for Chicago & North Western Ry. than 
do the earning statements for recent years. Of mileage 70% lies 
in Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota, and 45% 
honeycombs the two first named, all intensively producing land 
which is neither sparsely settled nor over-railroaded and therefore 
unlike the real Northwest as it is now or the Southwest as it was. 
Operation of the railroad has yielded common dividends without a 
break from 1878; at 7% 1902 to 1920, and from 1880 except in 
1895 never less than 5% until 1923, the total payment for which 
year was 4%, the current rate, just keeping the bonds ‘‘legal’’ in- 
vestments. The high prestige formerly attaching to the common 
stock is seen in the record of a lowest price of 11814 in fifteen pre- 
war years and a quotation above 130 as late as 1916. Adversity 
dragged the shares down in 1923, 1924 and again in 1925 to a 
market value less than half of par. 
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