Babst Demand

Many a U. S. woman has starved to preserve a slim figure, some men have refrained from reaching for a sweet. Nonetheless, the world's sugar crop has become yearly greater. Largely and suddenly expanded after the War, production increased by leaps and bounds until prices clumped, profits dwindled.

Therefore, on May 3, 1926, President Gerardo Machado y Morales of Cuba announced a new and corrective policy. Cuba, largest (22% of total) world producer, would limit its planting. Thus, argued Cubans, would supply be brought down to demand. Thus would prices mount, profits increase.

But the Cuban restriction plan, like England's rubber restriction experiment, achieved quite opposite results. The rest of the sugar producing world saw a golden opportunity to make money. And while Cuban production fell from 5,125,970 tons in 1925 to 4,011,717 tons in 1928, the world crop, swelled by many a new cane and beet plantation, rose from 23,687,000 to 25,326,000. Cuba then supplied only 16% of the whole. World markets were seriously unsettled.

No one was surprised, therefore, when the great restriction plan last December came to an abrupt and official end. Only the Sugar Export Co. remained as a potential marketing machine for use in future emergencies.

Last week, in Havana, Chairman Earl D. Babst of American Sugar Refining Co. called importantly at the presidential palace of Gen. Machado. His remarks were terse and to the point. Now that the experiment had failed, he declared, let there be no thought of repeating it. And let all traces of the disaster be expunged. Let Sugar Export Co. pass quietly into oblivion.

Babst. As everyone knows, American Sugar Refining Co. is among the most potent of U. S. sugar companies. Last year's profit from all sources (including income from the 1/4-owned National Sugar Refining Co.) totaled $9,614,432, as against $6,618,740 in 1927. Its holdings are wide and diverse. Not only does it own sugar refining plants but also a cooperage company, a coal company, and 300,000 acres of Cuban sugar land, equipped with factories and a railroad. This property produces 12% of all the company's raw sugar requirements.

Tall, fair-skinned, Earl D. Babst is the 59-year-old chairman of A. S. R. A., director of Great American Insurance Co., American Alliance Insurance Co., Massachusetts Fire & Marine Insurance Co., North Carolina Home Insurance Co., American National Fire Insurance Co., Great American Indemnity Co., Mt. Royal Insurance Co. of Montreal, The Chase National Bank. He has been eagerly active in affairs of Ohio's Kenyon College, and of the University of Michigan, which gave him a Ph. B. in 1893, an LL. B. in 1894.

Recently, he ended a five-year term as president of Psi Upsilon. Sugarman Babst is also lawyer, fisherman, golfer, clubman and traveler.