The Washington herald., 1921-11-02
Business Lacked Means
Of Observing Danger
Signals.
TOO MANY CAUGHT
WITHOUT WARNING
One Concern Tells of Sal
vation by Lucky
Hunch."
By JOHN PALMER GAvIT.

Something in particular must
have sent you on the Boston Post
road in Norwalk In the spring of
1920 to count the spare tires on the
rear ends. of automobiles and see
the bottom falling out OF your own
business What was it?"
"a hunch."
Yes, but hunches don't come out
of nowhere. Was your business
falling on?"
NO, It seemed to be growing.
Everything looked all right"
Then whence the hunch?'
r L. LAmson. treasurer of the
Norwalk Tire and Rubber Company.
pushed the papers aside on his
desk, looked out from under his
one eye, not with a wink, but as one
who wonders whether he'd better
tell
IN order TO answer that question
I've got to go into q private family
matter. Yes, home psychology"
isn't this a time for all the
cards face up7 guess domestic
psychology lies at the bottom of
all this business of business cycles,
in the last analysis"
We'll, all right. here goes. In
1919, when everything looked fine,
didn't you sit with groups OF men
who pulled out the flaps in pockets
to show the date of the suit and
boasted about the age of their
clothes? Or turned up the soles of
shoes to show you the holes in
them
"I did. I can do 1t yet"
That was mon. Men stopped
fW, n
didn't. My own wife didn't. She
made her trips to New York pretty
much the same. Prices were high,
and the bills we paid showed it.
When the Women stopped Buying.
But in the spring Of 1920 the bills.
with the same high prices and every
thing going apparently full speed. be-
gan to fall OF. My friends were
noticing the same thing. Wives stopped
making their trips to New York. They
bought in Norvalk only what was
absolutely necessary. 7 said to myself,
It's all OF: the t0onIeH hare stopped
bH3.'VG.'
Then was when got the hunch to
go out on the Post road and see about
spare tires"
People who used to carry three
spare tires carried only two?"
They didn't carry any! I didn't
bother about the local machines; a
man will take a little ride round town
without any spape tire. And I didn't
pay close attention to the Fords. /
kept count of the big, expensive ma
chimes with chaufreurs, owned by men
who had money for tires IL they
wanted to spend it. Pierce-Arrows.
Locomobiles, Cadillacs-all the high
priced machines, coming through from
Massachusetts. Pennsylvania. Ohio,
from long distances. touring. They
didn't have any spares"
How long does It take for con-
dition like that to work from the con-
sumner. through retailer, jobber and so
on. back to the factory"
"Oh, maybe six or eight months. 1t
begins gradually, almost imperceptibly,
gathers momentum but is not gener-
ally recognized until it reaches its
peak-or rather, the bottom Of the
slump. 1t differs. of course. in diff
ferent lines OF business"
But in the ordinary course Of af-
fairs, without anybody studying the
tail-endssof automobiles, the manufac-
turer has now no means of knowing
promptly, accurately. or perhaps even
generally. that the buying public is
backing up on him."
Exactly"
What did you do?'
Prepared for Storm.
Game right over here and got busy.
My colleagues saw instantly what 1t
meant. We acted accordingly;
Stacked up, got rid of surplus raw
material and generally prepared
ourselves for the storm.
"Of course, lots of other manu-
facturers did the same kind OF
thing. on information and lunches.
Co.ti,ycd n, pooe E1eper.