The Lord Helps Those . . .

And of all that Thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto Thee.

--Genesis 28:22

To the Kerr canning-jar people, Jacob's tithing vow is more than a wall motto. It is a way of doing business: every time Kerr makes a dollar, God gets a dime.*

The Kerr headquarters in Los Angeles show the marks of the partnership. The walls of the president's big office are covered with religious paintings. A well-thumbed Bible is always on the desk. Behind it last week Mrs. Ruth Kerr, 55, a widow with 13 grandchildren, started her 25th year as head of Alexander H. Kerr & Co. and its subsidiary, Kerr Glass Mfg. Co. (which sells the home-canning jars the parent company makes).

Ruth Kerr is a blue-eyed, plump, soft-spoken woman who believes that the Lord will provide, but that a body ought to help Him all she can. She has increased the company's output elevenfold, partly by branching out into making jars for industrial canners. She walks around her plants in sensible shoes, and shuttles between factories by plane. Last year her company turned out more than 100 million jars, not far behind Muncie's Ball Brothers Co., the biggest U.S. canning-jar maker. Last week, in a nip & tuck battle with Ball for the No. 1 spot, Mrs. Kerr launched her biggest advertising campaign yet.

The Partnership. Ruth Kerr is a Baptist. "Anything I've done," she says earnestly, "was accomplished because of what God has done." God has been a partner in the company since 1902, when debt-ridden Alexander Kerr, an obscure wholesale grocery man, took the tithing vow at Portland, Ore. Three months later, Kerr took a chance: he borrowed money to buy a patent on a glass vacuum jar that could be sealed at home. Kerr got a San Francisco glass works to supply his materials, and in four years had a profitable business.

In the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, he was first informed that the factory was "undoubtedly destroyed." Instead, the factory was "miraculously saved." After that, the Kerrs never doubted that God was on their side. When the two-piece lid (invented in their kitchen in 1915) boosted their business, Kerr gratefully took to putting tithing leaflets in every case of jars.

The Matriarchy. When Kerr died in 1925, Mrs. Kerr stepped into her husband's job. She set up research laboratories, and showed a genuine flair for promotion. She offered university scholarships as prizes in canning contests, sent out salesmen in a fleet of 40 Fords with giant Kerr jars jutting from the rumble seats.

To keep her employees happy, she set up group insurance, retirement and medical plans, awarded gold badges and bonuses for good work. Since many of her 600 employees are women, she promoted women into executive jobs. Such benevolent maternalism allowed her to run an open shop for years. When the union arrived in 1946, it was a conservative union of which Mrs. Kerr could approve. The A.F. of L.'s Glass Bottle Blowers' Association hasn't had a major strike in 58 years.

Mrs. Kerr still has time for prayer meetings and choir practice, In her way of life, religion and business are inextricably mixed. Whenever a Kerr glass furnace is relit after a shutdown, a minister is called in to ask a blessing.

Threatened by the spreading use of home freezing units, she is not unduly perturbed. She believes that the Lord will continue to provide, with the help of a revolutionary new product which she plans to market in a few months.

* Through religious, educational, missionary and charitable organizations.

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