Elastic Stocking

This week, as U. S. retail sales reached their annual peak, U. S. corporate largess did the same. Directors shook the Christmas tree, brought down a shower of bonuses, raises, extra dividends.

Biggest downpour was in Detroit. Signing a new agreement with United Auto Workers, Chrysler Corp. granted bonuses of $40 each to some 60,000 workmen (in lieu of vacations with pay), a 2-c- raise in hourly pay besides. To most observers, it looked as if smart Chrysler had made another smart move. The $40 bonus, which will give employes about $2,250,000, actually will cost Chrysler only about $855,000 net (considering both normal and excess-profits tax savings).

A few hours after the Chrysler contract was signed, Hudson Motor also granted its 12,000 workers vacation bonuses. Two days later Briggs Manufacturing (automobile bodies) announced $40 bonuses and 2/ wage increases for 19,000 men. Other bonuses-of-the-fortnight: A & P stores, $1,500,000; International Shoe, $600,000; Glenn L. Martin aircraft, $500,000; Procter & Gamble, $500,000; Horn & Hardart (automats), $340,000; Royal Metal Manufacturing Co. of Chicago, $21,000.

To the country's 8,500,000 stockholders, extra and special dividends came almost too fast to count. Items: Allied Chemical, $2; American-Hawaiian Steamship, $1.75; Loew's Inc., $1; J. C. Penney, $2; U. S. Gypsum, $1. The New York Journal of Commerce estimated that they would bring the year's total to $3,565,000,000, up 13% from 1939, 27% from 1938.

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