The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1912-08-06
Earnings and Profits.

Tho detailed statements Of earnings
| and profits contained in the answer
shows that in the first eight years
the dividends paid averaged 5:92 per
cent on the fully paid capital stock
and the total earnings only 7:l5 per
cent and that the main expansion IN
| the company's business has been gained
in the new lines if implements and the
foreign trade, which has increased
from about SlO,OOo,o00 in 1908, to over
| S42,000.000 in 1911.
1t is held that the company has active
and increasing competition. the num-
Der of competitors in binders being
eight with All aggregate capital OIL moro
than 100000; in other lines COM
petitors number from fourteen IN NOW
ers to lS1 in gasoline engines.
| The answer declares that the prices
of harvesting machinery have increased
about 3 per cent over 1902. while the
machines have been improved in quality
and the materials and labor entering
into their manufacture have increased
on the average Of 20 per cent.
Twine Is Cheaper.
As to binder twine, the answer as
serts that since the company was
formed the wholesale price OF slsal
twine has fallen from II cents TO o1a
| ccntS pounh anu VI 4"nuAia
| from 131A cents to IT'S cents a pound;
further, that the company has ex-
| pended more than a million dollars In
| tbe effort to produce binder twlne from
| American-grown fax. which, # sue,
cessful, will keep within the United
States $2O,0OO.0O0 now expended an
nuaIly for imported sisal and Manila
hbres
The wages and conditions of its
hon
| improved by the harvester company to
an extent impossible under trade con-
ditions existing prior to 1902; wages
have been increased fully 27 per
cent; profit-sbaring systems have been
| established; sanitary and safetv ap-
pliances installed. liberal plan of
workmen 3 compensation put into et~
| feet, with benefit department prov1d-
| ing sick and death benefits for en-
ployces and generous pension system.
Wide Publicity Given.
It is further declared that the com
many has given wide publicity TO it's
business, and in 1906 invited a full in
vestigation by the department Of com
merce and labor; that since 1907 the
bureau of corporations has been given
| free access to it's books and records
and every facility for obtaining com
pete information AS TO Its business
policies and methods: that since 1907
The company has filed with the bureau
of corporations its annual reports COW
ering all its business operations, and
that it welcomes the utmost pub
lcitv and public supervision, and is
ready and desirous of remedylng any
defects or mismanagcment in its bust
ness: that, relying upon the advice OF
able legal counsel as TO the entire
! legality of its organization, the COM
pany had made enormous investments
in developing it's foreign and domestic
trade. and that its stock had been pur-
chased by the general public and more
than thirty.six hundred employees who
have received stock under the com
panv's profit sharing plans.
The answer insists that the United
States government, having had for ten
years full knowledge Of the company
organization and methods and their
beneficial effect upon the trade and
public. should not, after thousands Of
employees and others have made large
investments in it's stock be permitted
in n court OF equity to urge that the
| corporation is illegal and should be
destroyed,
| A -r~rTi-n