Thirty years ago Michael Owens, glassblower, revolutionized the glass business by inventing a machine that was a substitute for human lungs in bottle making. Out of his invention grew the great Owens Bottle Co. of Toledo. Four years ago a merger made Owens Bottle into Owens-Illinois Glass Co., biggest U. S. bottle maker, producer of 40% of U. S. bottles, and made William Edward Levis its active head. Last week William Edward Levis gave signs of introducing another revolution to the bottle business, vertical integration of a new kind: Owens-Illinois having acquired a 40,000-share interest in National Distillers Products, Mr. Levis became a director of that company. Great, considering Depression, has been Mr. Levis’ success with bottles. Depression cut Owens-Illinois’ profits from $4,451,000 in 1929 to $2,067,000 last year, but this year what Prohibition took away it has partly given back. Three weeks before beer became legal Owens-Illinois’ orders already amounted to 55,000,000 bottles. Last week Owens-Illinois had its 20 plants working at full capacity. What is more. Mr. Levis could cock a snook at technocrats: although with present machinery the output per man per day in his factories is at least 50% greater than it was 13 years ago there were last week more men on Owens-Illinois’ payroll than at any time during the booming 1920’s. Not content with what beer might hand him Mr. Levis has spread his net, Depression as he used Prohibition: to enlarge his sway. Last October he bought Root Glass Co. of Terre Haute, Ind. Last week he bought Hemingray Glass Co. of Muncie. Ind. and also O’Neill Machine Co. of Toledo, maker of glass blowing machinery, adding to Owens-Illinois’ large and ancient holdings of glass machinery patents. Last week up & coming Mr. Levis also announced another development: discovery by Owens-Illinois of a method by which red, blue, green or orange trademarks of dairy companies can be fused directly into milk bottles. Buying into National Distillers Products gives Mr. Levis not only mastery of 40% of U. S. bottles but interest in a company which makes 40% of U. S. medicinal whiskey, which packs cherries, fruit, and olives, which makes extracts for the ice cream and candy trade. Incidentally it puts Owens-Illinois in line for a dividend of 8,000 cases of 15-year aged-in-the-wood whiskey which National Distillers has declared for holders of record Sept. 15. 1934.* More important to Owens-Illinois is the prospect that in case of Repeal it will make the bottles in which Old Grandad, Old Taylor, Green River, Mount Vernon, Sunny Brook, McBroyer and other National Distillers’ Products brands will be distributed.
*One case of 24 full pints for each five shares of National Distillers Products common— a dividend declared last August to induce holders of convertible preferred stock to exercise their option to convert.