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f ^4 *v<\ -Stx ; , ' v v :'*' 'pEV •£ « • * • * » ' ** •*'-«[ Piv .* ^ '^#W|pW» »"'"jWWfH 1S83 HA* ITS nnAHO" .V.jl ladioadchw by Dr. Julius. Jtlem, Assistant Secretary of Commerce, delivered over the foast-to-coast network of the Colombia Broadcasting System, from Washington, D. C-, 7:00 to 7:15 pan., Eastern Standard Time, Sunday, April 10, 1932. One of the striking features of this 'troubled business period that our country has been passing through for thfe last two years has been the Emergence of the small industrial plant as an increasingly important element in our economic structure. Even to those of you who may not be manufacturers, a pact of this sort is oi direct importance, for manufacturin# developments have a rather direct relation to the goods that jre consumers buy every day, and the prices we pay for them. The United States has for so long been teaching the rest jf the world the meaning cf "big business" that the casual observer of our industrial set-up may frequently have received an impression that the small manufacturer was being relegated to a situation approximating that of a rabbit in a cage of tigers. Mass production, business consolidation, were until recently our /Watchcries. Now I don't for a moment want to suggest that the day of big business is over or that the economies and technical advantages of mass production are not going to continue to play an exceedingly important part in our business recovery and in the maintenance of our position of leadership in many fields of manufacturing. I cfo want to suggest though,--if you will permit me to disregard a few zoological technicalities in resuming my figure of speech, --that it has been convincingly proved that our industrial babbits cannot only live happily in the tiger's cage, but 'can grow fat, and, as rabbits of all sorts have a way of doing, can multiply. To begin with, even in the heyday of our late lamented boom period there were plenty of small industrial units in every part of the United States quietly producing their goods And selling them to the satisfaction of their stockholders and their customers- The advantages enjoyed by the small plant are nothing new and do not depend on a general depression by any means. But there is no question that those advantages become more evident during a slump and are evident to more people. That is why, for example there were more new companies form, ed in New York State during January of this year than any other month of the last two years except March, 1931. In one word, the outstanding advantage a small concern has over the by? fellows in same field is adaptability. Its policies can be changed overnight, without having to run the gamut of ponderous boards and com mittees. Raw materials can be snapped up at advantageous prices when they an fMtiftd' and the smaller plant a^aMi tb lorn Involved in having io store huge inventories of such materials on a falling market. There are none of the dangers of absentee ownership in most plants,-- it was a canny New England banker himself who said h« preferred the accounts of such companies, for one reason, because they were not banker managed. If there is one field where it might seem that business js monopolized by the large companies it is that of tire manufacturing. Yet there is at least one small manufacturer whose plant is about 1,000 miles away from mighty Akron which increased its unit tire sales 88 per cent and its unit tube sales more than 100 per cent during the difficult twelve-month period ended last September 30 (the date it closed it's books for the fiscal year.) During that period, the tire industry as a whole eked out comparable increase of less than two and one-ha^f per cent- The president and directing genius of this little company, -- who had started as a bookkeeper and had been with the of'ganization since 1914, was elected to his present post in 192$, a year during which the nation as a whole was enjoying an above-average period of prosperity, and when most weJl-managcd concerns were making money hand over fist. But this executive found nothing "rosy" about the situation of his company, when he took charge, except red ink figures glowing from its books. Something was decidedly wrong with the methods of this tire company. Its products were being sold all over the nation but the stockholder's pride in this achievement was not sufficient for them to overlook the fact that they were not getting any dividends. The new president made up his mind that he was not going to try to compete with the giants of tJHe rubber industry, with their vast organizations and tremendous resources^ but that he was going to sell tires, Jmd sell them at a profit for his company just the same. So he deliberately set about a complete reorganization of the. firm's activities, to change it in effect from a national concern to an admittedly small, sectional affair. The number of its active accounts was reduced from more than 1,200 down to 175, -- none of them so far from the plant but what overnight deliveries could be made. The dealers were carefully selected, then the company used every possible means to help them operate successfully. And it was no longer necessary to employ whole battalions of salesmen as intermediaries. Most of the selling came to be done by personal contact between excutives of the company often the president himself, and by telephone. The company is making better tires than ever but its distributing costs have been reduced no less than seventy- five per cent while the efficiency of its distributing method has been, as we have seen, actually improved. While its operations still cover several states, it makes no pretense to - - . < -U beta* a "big busia#Mw; as tin companics go, it is very orach a home industry, but it has beaten the slump and has been able to build up such excellent relationships with its dealers and through them is Veepifcg consumers in its own section so well pleased with its products that there is no question that it will continue to hold its little place in the sun when the clouds of depression have rolled by. I want to mention another case, in quite a different field, where a manfacturer resisted the temptation to try to break into the field of big business. This firm, which manufactures "soft" drinks of excellent quality and sells them at comparatively high prices, found last year that it had turned its working capital eighteen times. Let us note well the reaction of its very level-headed president when he began tc appreciate the significance of this state of affairs. This was an abrupt increase in the turnover of the firm's capital and, says its chief, "indicated to Us that we were doing too large a volume for our capital investment. Therefore, we planned a period of marking time, of reorganization of territories, and more or less of a reorganization of personnel. We began weeding out undesirable and demoralizing accounts, arid in the rush of business we had been accumulating quite a few. We determined to increase our business with our best accounts." This ability to select only firstclass accounts is a valuable asset to the firm that is not under the necessity of keeping up a great volume of sales to offset the overhead of operating on a big business scale. The embarrassment that mere bigness may cause in time of depression is well illustrated by a cas6 of which I heard the other day, where a steel company was abliged to turn down a half-million dollar order because it was too small to justify reopening one of its mills. We must recognize that some of the new businesses that are springing up these days would never have come into being except as a direct result of the slump- Of the companies that were organized in New York State in January about one-third were without par valuation of their stock. We have no records to prove it but in a good many cases the new firms were organized bpr men who had been thrown out of employment by the larger companies. :• Quite a few advertising agencies last year found themselves under the necessity of reducing" their payrolls and many men who had been trained in that business, and trained well, were out of jobs. Advertising men, however, are notoriously hard to keep down and the situation did not result in any significant number of recruits for the retail apple business. On the other hand, it did have a good deal of bearing on the fact that some 500 new advertising agencies were reported to have started up during the year. A Jeod maay tf thuHL ttarted on little more tkaa the proverbial shoe string bet they do not need any great volume of accounts to keep going and it prob. ably will surprise the agencies that once employed their proprietors to find some of than, when the jolting of the present economic earthquake has died away, are well established in business. There are certain industries that by various part* to companies that have plants already operating and Equipped to do such wort. Our industrialist assembles the parts and places the product on the market. But if the little fellow, with limited capital, wants to do his own manufac. turing, he finds conditions are very much in his favor in times like these. There is no difficulty in obtaining the services of skilled workmen at moderbeen before for a small concern to prosper and to fill a needed place in our economic structure. their nature will always attain the ate wages. I would not for one moment best results when organized in com-1 point to this in any respect a pleasant pact units, each serving its own | factor in the current situation but it section. Distribution cost studies in certainly is better for a man to Have a the confectionery industry, for in: j chance to work for low wages th,\n stance, have shown definitely that to haVe no work at all. Curiously the most profitable and efficient j enough, one of the other outstanding plants are thostf doing a moderate developments in favor of the man who business (half a million dollars a year'wants to start a small factory has or less) and limiting their efforts to a'come about through "big business" restricted area. Prices for candies in. itself, --the power industry. It was not bulk are as a rule fairly well stan-; so long ago that an expensive steam dardized, and they must be marketed ^ power was the first essential of evon quickly and without the added expense , a small factory. Now, as one writer that long shipments involve. I puts it, the little manufacturer "sim- Then there is the question ofjply plugs in on a power line and turns variations in a product to suit the de- {off his power and its cost is as he mands of individual sections of the pleases. He. can make a start m any country. Take the "house dress " In old shed or barn. Power companies the north a house dress is little more find herein an amazing Increase in than exaggerated apron. A women revenue when by all the rules it wears them in the house but is not 'should be declining." likely.to appear in it outside her own] Some of the small industrial estabdbors. In the southwest, on the other lishments that have sprung up recenthand, a house dress is quite a differ- ly have found that they could not ent thing. It is still an informal gar-] make expenses and have, in due ment but hfts lest its relation to the course, faded away. On the other apron and may be worn on many.hand, many have done surprisingly occasions away from home- It has de-J well. Of these, a few may grow into veloped, therefore, that Texas man- i big businesses of national importance, ufacturers of house dresses are more1 as the nation regains its economic successful in interpreting local de- j health. But many more, I venture to mand than are the large New York manufacturers, though the former may be classed, as "small industrial units. Coming back to small concerns that have been definitely launched by unsettled business conditions, we find that advertising is by no means the only field that has been affected in this way. One association of national manufacturers has stated: "Mechanics who have lost their jobs in factories of various kinds in a series of divided labor are tending to go into^business themselves as producers of complete articles." These one-time mechanics become combination business managers and factory superintendents of their own little plants and often find that they can manufacture a commodity at a lower price and with bigger profits than would be possible for the more' highly organized establishment. There is record of at least one such manufacturer who has done so well that he is selling large companies equipment for their use that they formerly have produced themselves. Then there is another ingenious type of present-day industrialist, whose total capital consists of little more than an idea- He will work out a new product that catches the fancy say, will continue, along the lines on which they have begun, not extending their markets or increasing their production in any spectacular manner but rather serving well-limited territories with goods adapted to their particular requirements, perhaps increasing their profits as time goes on through more efficient manufacturing technique and improved distribution methods but always remaining more or less community affairs. In fair weather as well as foul, such manufacturers will find that intensive development of a compact marketing Area, where they can personally keep a finger on the pulse of demand and quickly adapt themselves to new trends, pays very satisfactory dividends. Big business itself has not hesitated to learn from the little fellow's bo:>k It is not uncommon these days to find some great industry that a few years ago was tending toward an ever closer consolidation now seeking to decentralize its activities, scattering its plants in different marketng areas. The big industrial organisations have their place and I believe always will have. But one thing that this depression has brought home to us is that mere size is not desirable in itself, that bigness should not mean an unnatural, bloated condition in a •THE • KITCHEN CABINET of the buying public but Instead of, business any more than in a human trying to engage in actual manufac- being, and that there is as great an turing he will give contracts for the opportunity today as there ever has (©. 1831. Western Newspaper Union.) * Failure la in a sense, the hlch> Way to success, inasmuch as every discovery of the false leads us to seek earnestly after what Is true, and every fresh experience points u out some form of error •which we •hail afterward carefully atoMU--> John Keats. • . WHAT TO EAT When ^making gravy •< without browned flour, add the flour to the fat and stir until well blended, then add the liquid and a tenspoonful of caramel to give the gravy a little monk, brown colon Molasses BiaculL ---Mix and sift two and. one-half eupfuls of pastry flour with one-half teaspoonfu! each of soda and salt, one-eighth teaspoonful each of ginger and cinnamon, a grating of nutmeg, three tablespoonfuls of shortening are now added, and when well mixed add three-eighths of a cupful of buttermilk and three tablespoonfuls of molasses. Pat half an inch thick and cut with a small cutter. Bake In a hot oven t£n minutes. These are served with butter and marmalade. Lemon Tarts.--Make a rich pastry and bake in fancy-shaped tins about two inches deep. Crimp the edges of the crust and fill with the following: Mix four tablespoonfuls of cornstarch with one-half cupful of cold water and add to „ one and one-half eupfuls of boiling water, stir and cook until thick. Beat the yolks of four eggs, add two eupfuls of sugar, one tablespoonful of butter, the Juice of three lemons and the grated rind of one. Cook over water until smooth and thick enough to stand up in points pchen stirred with a spoon. Fill the shells and cover with the egg white beaten stiff with five tablespoonfuls of sugar added. Bake in a moderate oven until a delicate, crisp brown. Mock Duck.--Take a two-pound steak two inches (hick and split to hold the dressing. Season welf, on the Inside with salt and pepper. For the dressing take two eupfuls of tdasted crumbs, two slices of diced cooked bacon. one-half teaspoonful of salt nnd pepper to tnste, add one egg slightly beaten, two chopped onions, a half teaspoonful of sugar, a bit of garlic and one-half cupful of water or any good broth. Stuff the steak and tie securely, with a string. Sear all over until brown. Cook in a dutch oven slowly until tender. Coast Boy* Will Hot -1? Mexican Flying StelnJ Bubersfield, Calif. --Two intrepid; southern Callfornians soon plan ta, search the unexplored Mexican jungle* for flying snakes. The pair, Thomas H. Broun, of Ba» kersfield, and Paxton C. Hayes, of Los Angeles, hope to take alive some of the "snakes," about which fabulous tales have been spun Into Mexican folklore; In addition, they expect to explore an* cient Mayan ruins sighted by Ooi* Charles Lindbergh. These ruins neves', have been explored. Scientists believe the snake the two youths are seeking is a member of the cobra family and to be deadly poisbn* ous. Although such snakes have ben' described many times, there 18 no ao^: tual prpof of their existence. Broun and Haye^ plan to drive aa far as they can Into the Mexican* jungles and then begin their penetration of the dense forests on foot andby collapsible boats. i Blue Grata cm Alien • ~ • Kentucky blue grass, pertsps tJrtf most popular lawn grass produced in this country, is not, as its name Implies, a native grass In t}ie United States. It is an importation from J5urope. As a matter of fact, most of the best grasses now grown in tb&r country have been introduced, her* from foreign sources. "Storage" ud "Dry" BtUwirt'. The sto&ge battery merely stores'up electricity which is put Into It and (Ires It out as needed. A dry batters makes electricity out of chemicals. It fs not really dry. It contains a waterjj solution of the necessary chemicals^ but this is absorbed by charcoal ec some other porous substance so that It will not ipill or leak out. Capt Kidd's Death Chains Recovered London.--The chains that bound the arms of Captain Kldd, when he was hanged at Wapping, 231 years ago, are believed to have been recovered. A chain harness, similar to the one used at the Wapping execution dock, where the bodies of pirates were left dangling from the noose until three tides had flowed over them, was dredged up from the Thames a short distance below the famous Tower bridge. The harness consist's of a chain which was placed around the body of the criminal and kept in position by a padlock. The wrists were secured by Iron loops connected to the body belt Captain Kidd is believed to have been the last man hanged at the execution dock on the river. \ W / v JOB'S A JOB ever HI : i 5#. + .3 That they must meet for the prosperity of the country has been exemplified in the past several years. That they must work together for continued welfare of individual and nation has also been well illustrated. 'Man without work is as useless as work without man. The men are here, eager for jobs, and the work is also here, in need of men. Only the combination of the two can eradicate depression. You can help in the drive for a man-a-job plan--give a man some work to do, if only one day a week. It is a patriotic duty, for in helping a jobless man find work you are helping your country find its former prosperous self. Let's pull together. We've got the men--come on with the jobs. THE 4 j, i f I v .A j . & v 1 *. ^ . f . L . . . .. . . . . * #• a . ^ > ^ -ryi 'ia