Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1911-08-24
PROFIT
FOR textile MEN
THROUGH A TARIFF
Nelliver Gives Insight Into Re.
suits of Protection of Mill
ing Industry.

protected cotton milling industry of
NE" England is given in an article en-
titled Our Mercerized Aristocracy."
oy Judson c. Welliver, in the August
Hampton's Magazine.
The dividend rate is not the only
evidence of large profits" says Mr..
Welliver. The big SURPRISES represent
undlstributed profits which are COM
monty put into new mills. After pay
corporations distribute their surplus
in stock dividends.'
I contemplate the financial record.
for example. of the Dartmouth COM
enough to make an investors mouth
water. In 1901 the Dartmouth paid IL
per cent dividends. Then for three
years 1t paid 8 per cent annually. Then
in 1905 the dividend jumped to 20 per
cent: This was not nearly big enough
to distribute profits. SO the 1906 divi-
dens were 26 per cent. This might
nave seemed satisfactory to an inves-
tor accustomed to snap up q farm
mortgage drawing 8 per cent, but it
tiles OF a we'll conducted cotton mill.
So in 1907 the Dartmouth paid 66 per
cent In dividends. n in 1908, the year
OF depression following the panic of
1907, 1T struggled along so we'll that
1t repeated this sc per cent perform
ance.
That would seem enough to deci-
mate even a most able bodied sur
plus, but the finest thing of it all was
holders. In 1909 the distrib-
uted a stock dividend of 100 per cent.
That is, every stakeholder received as
a gift a certificate for additional shares
or the same number he had held be-
fore. Besides this, there was a Is per
cent cash dividend. In 1910 it paid
per cent per quarter on the stock. old
and new: that is, at the rate of SIG
per annum on the increased capitaliza-
ton!
The Figures.
I'm addition to paying large cash
dividends for years. the Butler mill,
of New Bedford, paid. stock dividend
Of 20 per cent in 1910; the Manomet
mill, of New Bedford. paid a stock DIV
idend of 80 1-3 per cent in 1910; the
Soule mill, of New Bedford, distrib-
uted a stock dividend of 20 per cent
in 1909; the Whitman mill, another
New Bedford concern, declared a stock
dividend of 80 1-3 per cent in 1909;
the Bourne mill, of Fall river, declared
a stock dividend of 40 per cent in 1903:
the Chace mill, OF Fall River, declared
a 70 per cent stock dividend in 1905.
and 33 1-3 per cent in 1907; the Davis
mill. OF Fall River, in 1907 distributed
q stock dividend of 25 per cent and
the Davol mill. of Fall River, did the
same.
'The Laurel Lake mill paid IL per
cent in 1906, IA per cent in 1907, 13
per cent in 1908. 8 per cent in 1909.
and in 1907, as am1able recognition of
the goodness of providence and the
tariff makers. doubled its capitaliza-
ton n distributed a stock dividend
of 100 per cent. You will observe that
a stock dividend of 100 per cent makes
1t possible to distribute just twice as
much money to stockholders without
changing the percentage rate of the
dividend. l hope the s%tockholder was
have been. for h widows and or
phans constitute the final Justification
for passing these good things along
to our thrifty New England friends.
I'm Massachusetts,, New Hampshire,
Maine and Connecticut, just as in
Rhode Island. the big, rich corpora
tions are generally closely controlled
by limited groups of capitalists who
are able to derive these fat benefits
from your n my amiable but ex-
fairs; in short. from our willingness to
grant them protection which they do
not need, and which they coin into i'm
mense returns based on m%onopolistic
privilege.
The high-water mark Of nominal
dividends was reached by the cotton
mills In 1907. That was the year of
generous stock dividends, as we'll as
special cash distributions. Now, when
a mill makes a 100 per cent stock divi-
dend it means that to maintain it's
former dividend rate 1t must double
the amount of earnings devoted to div
idends.
The year 1908 was a year of busi-
ness depression. Dividends were gem
orally cut, arnings in MANY fields OF
industry disappeared. 1t would have
been an especially trying year for the
cotton mills. because of their recent
immense increase of capitalization, If
the cotton milling industry had beer
like others. But it is not. When the
depression year Of 1908 came, the mills
calmly paid their usual rates of diyi-
dends.
True. their already underpaid labor
had to suffer sharp reductions In
wages: true, also, you and / and the
other wearers of protected cotton goods
were compelled to pay prices that were
tendencies in other lines of business.
ThS.t was unimportant to the cotton
mill millionaires, the textile aristo-
cracy. It would have it's dividends.
and it got them. Part was squeezed
out Of US consumers. part out of it's
operatives. Yet. It got them, because
It had the power to extort them. The
grotesQue exaggerations of the policy
Of protection a v 1t power to take
them. It could pay as low wages and
charge al high prices as it chose; the
tariff wall held 1t secure in its domi-
nation"
Great River Undsr Jexas.
From the Christian Eefald.
Biologists are claiming that the greatest