Facts & Figures, Feb. 23, 1948

Nipped. Personal income reached an alltime high of $197 billion last year, up $20 billion over 1946. But the upswing, said the Department of Commerce when it announced the figures, had been nipped by the commodity slump (see above). Commerce predicted a drop in income, especially among farmers, in the first part of this year.

Slapped. With used-car prices on late models still well above those of new cars, Oliver W. Wood, president of National Used Car Dealers Association, endeared himself to the Senate Banking and Currency Committee by proposing price controls to hold auto prices down. The association’s Vice President L. M. Hargrove promptly wired the committee that the anti-control association “will force Mr. Wood’s resignation.”

Morgan Man. The House of Morgan got a new chairman, Russell C. Leffingwell, 69, a Morgan partner since 1923, a director of J. P. Morgan & Co., Inc. since its incorporation in 1940. He succeeded the late Thomas W. Lamont. President George Whitney, Morgan’s operating head since 1940, continues in the same job.

Ferguson Lands. Harry Ferguson, Inc., which lost its old tractor-making partner, the Ford Motor Co. (TIME, July 21), imported the first 200 tractors from its new supplier, Standard Motor Co. Ltd., of Coventry, England. Standard, which is shipping 100 tractors a day, hopes they will help U.S. sales of its new 72-h.p. automobile (price: “less than $2,000”). The tractors and cars will have many interchangeable parts. .

The Sixes Take Off. Douglas DC-6s, grounded by fires last November (TIME, Nov. 24), were test flown to see if the four major changes in the plane had eliminated the fire bugs. So far, the grounding has cost the three biggest domestic users of sixes (United, American and National airlines) an estimated $10,000,000. But the airlines still liked the plane. Of Douglas Aircraft Co.’s new orders for eleven DC-6s, six were from United, five from Delta.

Goldwyn Cuts Down. Hollywood’s private depression (TIME, Jan. 19) reached Sam Goldwyn. “To put his economic house in order,” Goldwyn got many of the high-priced executives of Goldwyn Productions Inc. to take a 50% cut. Said Goldwyn: “Me, I just offered to take myself off the payroll completely, that’s all.”