Downtown

In downtown districts last week the following was news:

P: Manhattan's National City Bank cut the interest rate on small personal loans from 6% to 4%. "The increase in volume has tended to decrease the cost of handling an individual transaction," explained Chairman James Handasyd Perkins. National City's reduction was the first significant move toward bringing the benefits of prevailing low interest rates to little borrowers.

P: Absorbed in bettering what he is sure is already the world's best low-priced car, Henry Ford has always tended to regard his dealers as a regrettable nuisance. In 1930 Ford dealer discounts were only 17%, far below the profit margin allowed by other motormakers. Then after Son Edsel Ford began to speak up more frequently at company councils, the rate was upped to 20%. Another boost to 22% soon followed. Last week, in the wake of a poor first quarter showing, Ford again hiked its dealer discounts, this time to 24%.

P: Author of a onetime best-seller on Jesus Christ (The Man Nobody Knows), Adman Bruce Barton was asked fortnight ago to see if he could sell the G. 0. P. to the U. S. public. Though Adman Barton has not definitely accepted the National Republican Committee's invitation, he got in some practice last week at a Chicago meeting of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association. Suggesting that businessmen get busy in the politicians' own backyard, he took off his hat, as one master salesman to another, to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Adman Barton: The first successful advertisement was one that said, "Mrs. Peter K. Moriskey of 38 Fulsome Terrace, writes: 'Since taking your pills I have had no more pains in the legs.' " The President never gets very far away from this sure-fire formula. He says,"My friends, you are feeling better. Tonight I am going to tell you some of the things we are planning that will make you keep on feeling better."

P: Re-elected president of the New York Stock Exchange without opposition was Charles R. (for Richard) Gay. In an expression of appreciation for President Gay's arduous efforts to convince U. S. citizens that his is really a new deal administration, the Stock Exchange governing committee declared: ''He has sought, continually and aggressively and with demonstrable success, to remove the prejudices and misconceptions born of the Depression."

P: Filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission was a curious syndicate agreement between Cord Corp. and President Morris Markin of Checker Cab, which Cord controls. This control (64,000 shares of Checker stock) is held by the syndicate, which is a polite word for pool. President Markin's interest in the pool is 6,500 shares. Last August the pool agreement, which has elaborate provisions to keep the two members from chiseling each other, was extended for five years and broadened to allow trading in securities of other taxi or allied companies, including Chicago Yellow Cab and Parmelee Transportation.

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