Business: Briggs Mixture

Favorite cigar store of baseball-minded Detroiters in 1907 was Mel Soper’s. Two of Mel’s good customers were Walter Owen Briggs and John Kelsey, coming figures in the coming automobile industry. When Walter Briggs was unable to get World Series pasteboards because the ball club and not Mel was the chief purveyor of tickets, Mel went to see his friend Frank Navin, part owner of the Tigers. Said Mel with dignity: “Frank, you’ve got to get me two tickets. . . . They’re for Walter Briggs.” Mr. Navin snapped: “And who the hell is Walter Briggs?” Mel grew eloquent about Briggs’s loyalty to the Tigers, offered to introduce him to Navin. When he did, Briggs got tickets.

Navin, Briggs and Kelsey became good friends, and when Mr. Navin’s partner died in 1918 Walter Briggs, president of Briggs Mfg. Co., and John Kelsey, who had built up Kelsey Wheel Co., each bought a quarter interest in the Tigers, but allowed Navin full control of the club.

When Wheelmaker Kelsey died, Mr. Briggs took over his stock and a year ago, with the death of Mr. Navin, he became the Tigers’ sole owner.

Parallel to Walter Briggs’s rise in Detroit baseball have been his fortunes in the manufacture of automobile bodies. The same year he was lucky in getting World Series tickets he joined B. F. Everitt Co., pioneer auto trimmer. When Owner Barney Everitt and two friends started the E. M. F. Co. (motor cars), Mr. Everitt did not think it altogether ethical to run a competing business of his own, so he made a deal with his able employe, Walter Briggs, to take over the trimming plant, which was soon called Briggs Mfg. Co. It went on painting and trimming bodies until after the War, when Mr. Briggs decided he could make better ones himself.

By 1924 Briggs was the largest independent body maker in the U. S. It still is. An original capital investment of $50,000 has produced a $42,468,000 company. Mainly on body business from such motor makers as Ford, Chrysler and Packard, Briggs last year earned $9,266,000. To diversify its manufactures the company has lately developed a line of lightweight stamped iron bathroom fixtures with a porcelain finish called “Brig-steel” which it says is cheaper to ship and install than conventional products.

Next door to one of the six Briggs plants in Detroit is the main works of Motor Products Corp., makers of dashboards, manifolds, mufflers, many another auto part. There is no duplication of manufacture between the companies. Briggs even buys top parts from Motor Products. Last week it was announced that a merger was in the making. Subject to directors’ and stockholders’ approval on both sides, three shares of Motor Products stock will be exchanged for two shares of Briggs. Combined assets figured on the basis of 1935 year-end statements will be $50,000,000.

Motor Products Corp. was founded in 1916 during Wall Street’s first big boom in motor shares—a merger of five small accessory companies. After profits in excess of $2,000,000 in 1928 and 1929, Motor Products’ income dropped rapidly to a $518,000 deficit in 1932. By 1934 the company was back in the black and last year’s profits were $1,079,000. President of Motor Products since 1935 has been Antone Lyman Lott, 50, whose service with the company dates to its founding. A graduate of the University of Nebraska (Class of 1907) in electrical engineering, he got into selling 20 years ago, rose to become Motor Products’ sales manager, later general manager. Where he will fit in the new setup has not been announced.

Mr. Briggs, now 59, is not in the best of health, lives in Florida except in the summer, when he goes to Detroit on business and to watch the Tigers. Second in command at Briggs Mfg. Co. is William Patrick Brown, vice president, who was paid a $75,000 salary last year, $15,000 more than Mr. Briggs.

While Briggs and Motor Products do not compete in the accessory trade they do have one thing in common: labor trouble. Indeed, Detroit newspapers no longer consider a Briggs strike news until it approaches in violence the 1933 walkout which forced Henry Ford to shut down. In the opinion of Labor, working conditions in the Briggs plants are a disgrace to Detroit. When Michigan’s Governor-elect Frank Murphy was Detroit’s mayor, a citizens’ committee was appointed to look into Briggs labor policies with results by no means complimentary to the management. A Motor Products strike ended last summer after ten months of bickering between competing unions, but it failed. Last trouble at Briggs was an epidemic of departmental sit-down strikes a month ago which resulted in wage increases. Fortnight ago Briggs announced a year-end bonus of $1,000,000 for 26,000 employes.