Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1920-05-03
Monday, May 3, 1920.
The Profits Of the Profiteers.

Senator Arthur Capper Of Kansas
arraigning profiteering as national
menace, declared his belief that the
proof is in the margin Of profit shown
on the books of business houses. He
presented list of corporations
whose earnings he characterized as
profiteering open. fragrant and
scandalous" The list with the per-
centage of profit included the follow
ing:
Continental Oil. 200 percent:
United Fuel Gas, 200 percent: Ohio
Fuel Supply, 100 percent; Nonquit
Spinning Company. iOo percent:
Amoskeag Cotton Manufacturing
Company. 100 per cent: Stutz Motors,
100 percent: Nashua Manufacturing
Company. 100 percent; American To-
bacco Securities Company, IS per-
cent: Manomet Mills &C % percent;
Hood Rubber. &C 23 percent; Cruel
bic Steel. so percent; Cleveland
Akron Bag. so percent; Union Bag
and Paper, so percent: Auto Car
~ peICtEl, Jtln H.
Thompson Company, SO 1-3 percent:
St Maurice Paper Company. so per-
cent: F. w. Woolworth. 30 percent:
Electric Welding of Boston. % per-
cent: Delaware & Cleveland. % per-
cent: Hawaiian Pineapple Company
e5 per cent; Electric Welding Com
pany. % percent: General Chemical.
20 percent: American Multigraph, 30
percent: Truscan Steel. 20 percent
The Senator then compared the
present years profits of several
other corporations with their earn
ings four and five years ago ana
produced these figures:
The National Candy Company's
earnings last year showed an in
crease OF 54o percent over 1918;
Burns Brothers, the largest retail
coal dealers in the United States,
made net profit Of 30 cents n ton,
against e3a cents in 1916: the earn
ings of the United Drug Company,
doing a business of s50,000,000 an
nually. were 2i2 percent greater
than 1915; the American Ice Com
=,
but not profits, has in the last four
years increased its earnings 283 per-
cent; the International Cotton Com
pany, doing nearly $4,000, 600 worth
OF business last year. made SO per-
cent more money, although it sold 20
percent fewer goods: the Pacific
Mills output Of cotton aud worsted
dress goods produced 81 percent
more profit than in the year before
the war and the excess profits sur
plus of United States Steei-the sur
plus remaining after divdends-has
aggregated nearly $500. 00G. 0O0 in the
last five years. although $4,000 900
was spent on improvements"
There are plenty of laws which
would put these men in Jail, pro-
vided the laws were enforced, he
said, and declared that if the en-
forcement officers cannot do their
duty they should give place to men
who can.
And Democratic Senator an
swered and said it might be adj
mitted that the present cdministra
ton had not checked profiteering,
but added that at the end of the next
one Senator Capper would find that
the efforts in that direction would
be as miserable a failure as he con-
siders those OF today. He mentioned
that all the profiteers he knew any,
thing about personally are members
OF the Republican party.
Thus the game goes on. Senators
talk and argue againts time and
each other; department of Justice
agents arrest suspected reds and
the department of labor sets them a,
liberty, ad infinitum.
It's a great life, but the first hun.
dred years are hard.