More Earnings

"I told you so," or some more elegant paraphrase thereof, is what many a U. S. newsreader said last week when he saw the earnings report of the company whose stock fluctuations he had watched during 1927.

General Motors Corp. ("A family of products & people")--$235,104,826, largest peacetime earnings ever reported in the history of industry. (Wartime earnings of U. S. Steel Corp. in 1916 were $333,574,178. G. M. C. earnings for 1926 were $194,645,462.

Pennsylvania Railroad Co. (Broadway Limited)--Reported a record year, earnings of $68,160,296. Previous year: $67,-567,959.

The Mackay Companies ("Telegrams to all America: cables to all the world")--$4,627,417. Previous year: $4,626,171.

Gillette Safety Razor Co. (Also chiropodists' & doctors' knives, chisels, twine cutters)--$14,580,000. Previous year": $13,311,412.

Best & Co. (Manhattan dry goods merchants)--$978.818. Previous year: $900,-207. "The Holland Tube has brought to our store more Jersey shoppers than ever before."

Air Reduction Co. (Oxygen & other chemicals plucked from the air)--$2,412,-596. Previous year: $2,262,191.

International Paper Co. (Largest such) --$5,700.000. Previous year: $3,275,283.

Simmons Co. (Sleeping made scientific) --$4,253,164. Previous year: $2,786,937.

Photomaton Inc. (Quarter-in-the-slot picture machine)--$107,088. No previous statement. Incorporated in April 1927, Photomaton Inc. has grown from one studio to 58.

Aluminum Co. of America--$13,671,-940. Previous year: $19,747,068. President Arthur Vining Davis explained the difference by the reduction in aluminum price from 27 to 24 cents per pound, and vast accumulations of aluminum ready to sell.

Fierce-Arrow Motor Car Co. (De luxe taxicabs; luxurious private motors) lost $783,200. In 1926 the company earned $1,267,684. Reassuring the stockholders, President M. E. Forbes wrote: "Your company carried on the year's operations without any bank loans."

The Childs Co. ("Go Vegetablewise. . . . ") -- $1,496,858. Previous year: $1,683,329. Explained President William Childs: "Unfavorable summer weather, particularly at week ends; the Mississippi flood and New England floods, the Ford shutdown, etc. all retarded the company's business."

Humble Oil & Refining Co.--$7,100,000. Previous year: $19,385,000. Difference was attributed to overproduction of crude oil. Of 1928 said President W. S. Parish: "Any measure of prosperity that comes to the industry this year must come through the utmost caution and conservatism on the part of each individual unit of the industry, large or small. We must temper our effortis to produce crude, and as refiners we jmust not overproduce our markets for gasoline."

Western Union Telegraph Co. (Ready-to-wire sentiments)--$1,205,458. Previous year: $1,240,273.