A. T. & T.'s Year

During the bull market American Telephone & Telegraph paid no extra dividends, split no stock, put all its extra earnings into surplus. By 1932 that surplus was big enough to have paid each & every stockholder $31. That year, when A. T. & T. and affiliates earned only $5.96, President Walter Gifford took $58,000,000 out of surplus, paid his 700,000 stockholders the customary $9 dividend.

Last week A. T. & T. and affiliates reported earnings for 1933 of only $5.38 a share. Bell System telephones were down only 630,000 against 1,650,000 for 1932, but Western Electric had lost $13,000,000. Dividends had been paid at the regular rate each quarter, leaving a deficit of $68,000,000. To cover it President Gifford turned once more to surplus, now $345,000,000.

P:Harry F. Sinclair formed Consolidated Oil in 1932 out of Sinclair Consolidated, Prairie Pipe Line and Prairie Oil & Gas. Last week Consolidated Oil voted its first common stock dividend of 28-c-, announced it would distribute practically all profits in 1934 to common stockholders as a "recovery" measure.

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