Business: Wage Symposium

Widely quoted as a bearish argument have been recent wagecuts by such large companies as Chrysler Corp. and National Cash Register Co. (10% each last month). Last week Roy Dickinson, alert associate editor of Printers’ Ink (22,645 circulation, advertising trade weekly) telegraphed a list of tycoons to learn what future wage reductions may be in store. Some of the replies which he received:

James A. Farrell, president of the United States Steel Corp. (224,980 employes in 1929): “I heard a steel man say the other day, in fact more than one recently, that wages should come down. I said, ‘Oh no, wages in the steel industry are not coming down; you can make up your mind to that fact. If you are going out to sell your goods and eliminate your profit and expect to get it out of the men in the mills you are greatly mistaken.’ ”

George Francis Johnson, president of Endicott Johnson Corp. (shoes, 17,000 employes):”Reduction of income of labor is not a remedy for business depression; it is a direct and contributing cause.”

Richard S. Shainwald, president of Paraffine Companies, Inc.: “The Paraffine Companies,Inc. has made no reductions in personnel . . . nor has it made any wage cuts . . . believes such reductions can be and should be avoided.”

Chesley Robert Palmer, president of Cluett, Peabody & Co. Inc. (5200 employes) : “A general reduction of wages and salaries at this time is entirely unwarranted.”

Walter A. Sheaffer, president of W. A. Sheaffer Pen Co.: “Believe it would be a serious mistake.”

Albert Russel Erskine, president of Studebaker Corp.: “Have not even considered reducing wages or salaries.”

Charles Ruffin Hook, vice president of American Rolling Mill Co.: “Wage reductions would, in our opinion, retard and not stimulate business.”

Albert C. Loring, president of Pillsbury Flour Mills Co.: “We have not contemplated any reduction in wages. . .”

Herbert V. Kohler, vice president of Kohler Co. (plumbing): “Kohler Co. is maintaining its organization and its wage scale.”

Harold C. Keith, president of George E. Keith Co. (shoes) : “While our company has made no reductions in wages or salaries and contemplates none, yet . . . conditions . . . might force such changes at a later date.”

Arthur Roeder, president of Colorado Fuel & Iron Co.: “. . . To say that cuts will not be made would be like declaring a dividend out of anticipated profits. . . .”