More Earnings

Some with pride, some with anxiety, investors read last week the annual reports of their favorite companies, compared the earnings, made conclusions:

American Telephone & Telegraph Co. ("Longest station to station call within the U. S. now costs $10; San Francisco, Calif. to Eastport, Me.")--$166,000,000. Previous year: $155.000,000.

Radio Corporation of America (in 1927 direct radio services were inaugurated with the Dutch West Indies, Philippines, Northern South America, Porto Rico, Belgium, Hongkong via Manila, & Turkey)--$11,799,650. Previous year: $7,306,487.

Packard Motor Car Co. ("Ask the man who owns one.")--$10,000,000 (half year, estimate)--previous year, same period: $7,912,358.

Pro-Phy-Lac-Tic Brush Co. (tooth, hair, clothes brushes) reported largest earnings in its history (61 years), $726,491. Previous year: $607,906.

Postum Co. (cereals, desserts, near-coffee)-- $11,368,218. Previous year: $11,317,422.

Associated Dry Goods Corp. (James McCreery and Lord & Taylor of Manhattan; many another dry goods store from Minneapolis, Minn, to Newark, N. J.)--$3,330,220. Previous year: $3,823,721.

Baltimore & Ohio R. R. (poly-colored locomotives, good foods)--$22,623,345. Previous year: $27,609,759. President Daniel Willard offered as explanations: expenses incident to centenary celebration, increased basis of pension payments to retired employes, decline in coal traffic, decline in passenger traffic.

National Lead Co. ("Dutch Boy" white-lead, red-lead)--$4,929,396. Previous year: $9,004,567. Explained Pres. Edward J. Cornish enigmatically: "Serious competition had developed between lead and other metals in lines where lead has for centuries enjoyed deserved prestige, and especially between different pigments used for the same purpose."

Walworth Co. (plumbing fixtures, plumbers' tools)--$384,710. Previous year: $561,908. Explained President Howard Coonley: "The unsatisfactory conditions prevalent in other branches of the steel and iron trade during 1927 have also affected the valve and fitting industry."

American Smelting & Refining Co. (Onetime [1907-13] Senator Simon Guggenheim is president)--$15,477,770. Previous year: $17,760,721. "The showing of earnings is quite satisfactory, in view of the fact that metal prices were lower in 1927 than in 1926, and your company is now a substantial miner of lead, zinc, copper and silver," soothed President Guggenheim.

Corn Products Refining Co. ("Argo" and "Duryea" starch, "Karo" corn syrup, "Mazola" salad & cooking oil)--$11,905,289. Previous year: $11,933,881.

U. S. Cast Iron Pipe & Foundry Co., $3,373,976. Previous year, $5,049,367. President N. F. S. Russell offered no encouragement to stockholders: "As long as French costs for labor remain at levels 50% or more below similar costs in the U. S., such importations [pipes] will remain a commercial factor. It is one of the anomalies of the situation that some of the largest public utilities, privately or municipally owned, dependent on the sale of their water, gas and power to residents of the U. S., should, for a small percentage of ultimate savings, purchase foreign pipe."

Federal Reserve Banks (12 banks for banks) -- $43,024,484. Previous year, $47,599,595.

United Drug Co. (Rexall products)--$8,337,125. Previous year, $8,883,147.

Motors. Peerless Motor Car Co., reported losses of $725,734; their earnings in 1926 were $919,883. Paige-Detroit Motor Car Co. announced losses of $4,643,351: in 1926 they earned $500,206. (The three Graham brothers obtained control of this company toward the end of 1927, renamed it Graham-Paige.)