Cut Price

Extravagant U. S. smokers may pay 15-c- for a 15-c- package of cigarets. Shrewd cigaret buyers, however, find little difficulty in getting two packs for a quarter, one pack for 13-c-. At Atlantic & Pacific chain stores, indeed, a carton (ten packs) of 15-c- cigarets is sold at $1.14, and R. H. Macy & Co., famed price reducer, offers the carton at $1.09. Thus the "list price" of the largest selling cigarets has been cut a penny here, a penny there, and several pennies elsewhere.

Last week these various bad pennies turned up at a stockholders' meeting of Schulte Retail Stores Corp. The meeting was extremely raucous, with President David A. Schulte centre of the storm. Hecklers maintained that Schulte directors were selling their Schulte stock and that Wall Street knew that Schulte earnings were shrinking before Schulte stockholders had any suspicion that all was not well. To them Mr. Schulte replied that no common dividends might be paid for the rest of the year, that if cut pricing prevailed there might be no dividends for the next five years, that one of his stores, fighting the devil with fire, had cut 15-c- cigarets to 11-c-, that "retailers are going to make a legitimate profit or none at all." Should this 11-c- policy be followed at all Schulte stores it might well be imitated by the United Cigar Stores (allied with Schulte through the Union & United Tobacco Corp.). President Schulte blamed the A & P stores for the general price cutting situation.

Schulte stock, which had a 1928 high of 67 1/2, has had a 1929 low of 23 3/8, was selling last week at around 24. The 1928 earnings were $3.96 a share compared to $4.91 in 1927. Angry, Mr. Schulte threatened to put lunch counters and "novelty" merchandise in his stores, thus (like United Cigar with its Happiness Candy alliance), to alleviate cigaret competition by adding non-tobacco merchandise.