Profitless Prosperity

President Magnus Washington Alexander of the National Industrial Conference Board declared last week to a Cincinnati audience of the National Metal Trades Association that one-ninth of 1% of the corporations of the U. S. (95 in number) made a net income in 1925 of $5,000,000 or more apiece, and that the total profits of these 95 corporations accounted for 44.5% of the industrial net income of the nation. The other 89,579 U. S. corporations divided up the rest of the nation's industrial profits. The 95 corporations earned 25% more in 1925 than in 1923. The 89,579 earned 11% less in 1925 than in 1923.

President Alexander pointed to: "Great national prosperity with great business activity but a competitive struggle which has resulted in precarious profit margins."

And last week President John E. Edgerton of the National Association of Manufacturers wrote: "The common run of manufacturers of the U. S. today are in about as happy a condition as their fellow-producers, the farmers."