House of Swift

When Gustavus Franklin Swift, fifth son and namesake of the Cape Cod meat peddler who founded the House of Swift, became president in 1931, his company had just reported annual sales of $900,000,000. As Depression began to pull down meat prices, hard-working Gus Swift, whose wife bitterly complains that he never has time for play, kept on buying hogs, sheep, cattle. Though his dollar volume dwindled, he processed almost as much meat as he ever had before. ''It was our job to see that the daily cash market . . . was kept open, and we did it,'' said President Swift at a stockholders' meeting in Chicago last week. "No meat surplus spoiled for lack of facilities." He informed his stock holders that gross sales for 1933 had been a little over $500,000,000, that tonnage had increased 6%, but that profits were only a fraction of a cent per pound. Then he added:

"The price at which meat found its market was often too low, but that a market was found meant that the money received would buy more livestock.

"I wish there were a better public understanding of packers' profits and the fact that they have no appreciable effect on what the farmer receives for his live stock or the price the consumer pays for meat. The profits of all the federally inspected and uninspected slaughterers during the eight years, 1925 to 1932 inclusive, based on reports to the U. S. Department of Agriculture, have not exceeded 1-c- per person weekly, 4-c- per family and 15-c- per farm.

"Our capital stock is owned by about 55,000 shareholders, of which 24,000 are women and 13,000 are employes. ... It takes over 2,600 of the largest shareholders to vote a majority of the stock."

Thereuoon the 55,000 shareholders made a director of Brother George Hastings Swift, now manager of the Eastern Division. Fourth son of the founder, George Hastings is one of seven Swifts now active in the company.*

*The others, besides President Gustavus: Board Chairman Charles Henry Swift, 61, husband of Soprano Claire Dux; Vice President Harold Higgins. Swift, 49, only son of the founder who went to college (University of Chicago); Vice President Alden B. Swift, 48, and Manager Louis Franklin Swift Jr., 38, of the Fort Worth plant, sons of onetime Chairman Louis Franklin Swift who retired as a director last year at the age of 71; ard Nathan B. Swift, 22, son of Alden Swift, now working in the Chicago plant.

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