Chrysler Week

Opening their dividend envelopes last week, Chrysler Corp. stockholders found, in addition to a check a letter from Board Chairman Walter Percy Chrysler. He told how the company has been expanded and rounded out since the Dodge Bros. Inc. acquisition two years ago, said it is in a better competitive position than ever before. Of the five points given to uphold this claim, most meaningless and general seemed Point No. 5: "A new basis of co-operation between management and employes . . . marks a distinct step forward in common sense industrial relations."

A few days after the letter was mailed, however, came Chrysler news which made Point No. 5 a point indeed. The pay of all salaried employes, "from Mr. Chrysler down," was reduced 10%.

Explaining this unusual and sweeping move, the company announced it to be "consistent with a retrenchment policy which the current depression in business demands. Labor has already contributed substantially and it was felt to be only fair that salaried employes should also bear some of the burden. The Chrysler organization is determined to operate its business on a profitable basis under whatever conditions may exist." To stockholders who had seen Chrysler earnings for the first quarter dwindle 98% to a paltry $180,000, this last sentence made pleasant reading.

While this was taking place in Detroit, a cloud of rumors continued to float about the bright tower of the Chrysler Building in Manhattan, world's tallest man-made thing. It had been announced that the building is on a paying basis. By July 1, 72% of the space was leased. But it was common knowledge that Mr. Chrysler, like other Manhattan landlords, was having trouble finding tenants. Passersby thought they saw signs of economizing in the dimming of the building's lobby lights at night and the failure of searchlights to play on the 1,046-ft. pinnacle as advertised. Another seeming portent was a lien on the building filed by Architect William Van Alen to collect $725,000 of the $865,000 he claimed was due him. Most persistent and grave of all rumors was the story that Mr. Chrysler no longer held control of Chrysler Building Corp. (not connected with Chrysler Corp.). This gravest report Mr. Chrysler's representatives stoutly denied. They pointed to a retraction they had obliged the New York Daily Mirror to print last summer after Colyumist Walter Winchell gossiped: "The big $13,000,000 Chrysler edifice at 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue, bought from Sen. Reynolds of Long Beach, L. I., has been taken away from Walter Chrysler. . . . Money troubles." They cited the fact that no newspaper had since printed any suggestion that Mr. Chrysler's tower was slipping from his grasp. They promised a statement "qualifying the fact of Mr. Chrysler's owner-ship." But weeks slipped past and no statement came out, Mr. Chrysler apparently being too preoccupied with that which makes him rich to worry about his monument.

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