Notes
Advertising. Nine years and a 500% increase in newspaper advertising--Director William A. Thompson of the Bureau of Advertising of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association was telling the Federal Trade Commission last week. In 1925, $720,000,000 was spent on newspaper advertising--$500,000,000 by local merchants, $220,000,000 by national sellers. Advertising agencies placed considerable of the business; in fact it "would be suicidal to advertisers" to do away with the present agency system, according to Manager Lincoln B. Palmer of the association.
White Truck Roll Call. Annually the White Co. of Cleveland publishes its "Roll Call" of White truck owners, a veritable roster of the greatest U. S. industrial concerns. This year the roll runs so long--961 fleets including 35,755 trucks--that only the owners of ten or more machines can be listed. About as many owners again remain anonymous, owning only nine or less trucks. The Gulf Refining Co. has the largest White fleet--1929; the Associated Bell Telephone Co. next--1420; the Standard Oil Co. of N. Y. third--1032. This year, as the roll call presented last week showed, there were 124 more owners, 4,662 more Whites on the list than the year before.
Motor Profits. The year's first quarter just ended showed motorcar makers in excellent condition. Where profits available for dividends showed no increase over the corresponding quarter of 1924, the explanation lay for the most part with the internal adjustments of the companies concerned. The Wall Street Journal last week made up a comparative table showing profits for dividends, and per common share earnings the past three years:
GENERAL MOTORS:
1st quarter Common
Year net for divs. shares A share
1926 a$34,854,816 5,161,599 $6.38
1925 a17,811,239 5,161,599 3.08
1924 a19,400,956 20,646,327 .85
DODGE BROS.:
1926 b5,990,489 2,434,563 1.21
1925 6,357,182 c c
9NASH:
1926 .... 4,137,508 2,730,000 1.51
1925 3,099,293 273,000 10.36
1924 1,618,475 273,000 4.91
STUDEBAKER:
1926 4,028,920 1,875,000 2.08
1925 3,605,780 1,875,000 1.84
1924 3,542,259 750,000 4.52
CHRYSLER:
f1926 4,000,000 2,711,640 1.30
1925 3,501,226 623,000 4.85
1924 1,819,445 617,948 2.16
hPACKARD:
1926 3,122,849 2,614,722 1.19
1925 1,081,991 2,377,020 .37
1924 1,238,561 2,377,020 .42
gHUDSON:
1926 2,746,023 1,330,050 2.06
1925 3,826,932 1,320,150 2.90
1924 1,301,363 1,320,150 .98
WILLYS-OVERLAND :
f1926 1,500,000 2,527,019 .40
1925 3,171,466 2,264,634 1.23
1924 2,160,520 2,159,981 .82
HUPP:
1926 1,122,308 913,809 1.22
1925 852,963 913.809 .93
1924 392,121 913,809 .42
PAIGE-DETROIT:
1926 505,369 676,474 .70
1925 577,799 615,000 .87
1924 863,810 600,000 1.37
PIERCE-ARROW:
1926 328,982 dlOO.OOO d3.28
1925 e200,416 100,000 1.68
1924 e78,729 100,000 .47
MOON MOTOR:
1926 185,400 180,000 1.03
1925 180,590 180,000 1.00
1924 202,368 180,000 1.12
a) Excluding equity indisturbed earnings of own or controlled subsidiaries not consolidated in reports ; b) profits before taxes; c) predecessor company privately owned ; d) preferred stock ; e) profits before prior preference dividends; f) estimated ; g) quarter ended Feb. 28 ; h) third fiscal quarter ended Feb. 28.
Lumber. William Alfred Pickering of Pickering, La., and Kansas City, Mo., let a generation flick by and last week signed another Pickering company charter--for the newly created $32,000,000 Pickering Lumber Co. Thirty-two years ago he and his father William R. Pickering organized the W. R. Pickering Lumber Co. for $60,000. They prospered, took in as subsidiaries the Standard Lumber Co. and the Pickering Land and Timber Co., established 51 retail yards in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, developed timber holdings of some 350,000,000 feet of southern yellow pine and 3,500,000,000 feet of California white and sugar pine, reached production of 1,000,000 feet of finished lumber a day and 400,000 doors a year. So they decided to consolidate all, establish headquarters at Kansas City.*
* Kansas City was also the headquarters of the Long-Bell Lumber Co. (13 plants, 126 retail yards), which Robert Alexander Long has made famous, not only by trademarking each board he puts out, but more so by creating the model industrial city of Longview on a drab stretch of the Washington shore of the Columbia River. Oceangoing steamers can dock at Longview. It is a little west of Portland, Ore.