EARNINGS: $$$$ or Quit

Proxies for American Tobacco’s annual stockholders’ meeting next month carried the news that Lewis D. (“Gadfly”) Gilbert was out for trouble again. Specializing in heckling the management of the 60-odd companies a tiny bit of whose stock he holds, Capitalist Gilbert was all set with a resolution drastically cutting the bonuses paid to President George Washington Hill and his high-powered vice presidents.

To Tobaccoman Hill those were fighting words. Out last week was his 1939 annual report showing profits of $26,427,934—best since 1933, though 43% under phenomenal 1931. Of that sum, $300,300 went to Mr. Hill (salary: $120,000), $180,180 to each of his four current vice presidents (salaries: $50,000 apiece) as bonuses.

In a hot letter to his stockholders, George Washington Hill told them in effect that they would either pay him on his own terms or he would quit. And he certainly had a case. During the 14 years of his presidency, stockholders have received a third of a billion dollars in dividends.

And not one stockholder in a thousand would have the foggiest notion of where to find such another ingenious, raucous, hard-headed producer of profits by efficiency plus ballyhoo.