Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-27
BY JOHN F. SINCLAIR.
Special Dispatch to The star.

Special Dispatch to The Star.
NEW YORK, January 27.-Some
towns move ahead and blossom into
cities. Others equally well situated lose
out in the struggle and sink back into
villages of no Importance. Why? More
often than not it is a problem of lead
ership.
Consider Round Rock, Tex, a village
of LOO people, entirely surrounded by
cotton fields. A typical one-crop town.
When the cotton crop was good and
more often than not the cotton crop
was poor and prices low. Then the
town just crawled along. Times were
hard. there was no money in sight and
more debts ahead. Just too bad!
Thomas z. and Carl A. Nelson, broth
ers, owned the Farmers State Bank.
1t, too, had hard shedding. They re-
solved to widen the business foundation
of the community. They considered it
leg Of cotton. So they set to work to
diversity crops.
They established q cheese factory,
opened 1t in January, 1928. and the
first day the receipts of milk were 800
pounds from 20 farmers. Now 800
farmers are delivering $4,000 pounds of
milk daily. Hundreds of farmers have
two to six cows each. The first year the
local farmers received $86,725 for their
milk.
The community, too, now has a pay
roll Of $4,000 month, whereas it had
nothing before-just hard luck and
debts.
OF course, these young bankers are
selfsh, In that they are doing this work
to help themselves, but it's mutual for
the community profits, too. Before the
advent Of the cheese factory their bank
was loaning money to these farmers
who paid when and If their cotton crops
were q success, not otherwise. So, as
bankers, they saw something must be
done to change the situation. In two
years they have changed the economic
condition Of the entire community.
The problem OF prosperity is at heart
a part Of leadership.
Record Of Pennsylvania.
There are many corporations that
nave 81 ,OO0, 900 of capital-proba-
bly, dozen of them. But not any of
them have the extraordinary record of
having paid cash return to its stock
holders every year since 1847-say for
"a years. This is the record of the
Pennsylvania Railroad Co., which by
the end Of this year will have paid a
grand total of $685., 064,9 to its stock
holders since its f1rt payment to them
In April, 1847.
For the last complete year, 1929, the
pennsylvania Railroad paid dividends
Of ia per cent or $43, 7S4, 734, bringing
the total dividends paid by that rail-
road company to the end of 1929 to
$3.50, 172, 589.
Its 100000 common stockholders look
to the president, Gen. w. w. After
bury of Philadelphia to continue the
good work Of future dividends, begun
nearly century ago. His plans call for
the complete electriflcation of the PENN
sylvan1a. This and the question grow
ing out OF Eastern railroad mergers
are keeping Mr.. Atterbury more than
busy.
Investment Trusts.
No reports are watched with more
care, and gone over with keener eyes
than those Of the various investment
trusts as they are being issued.
Bankers particularly are interested,
Tor the rise OF the investment trust has
been q discussed subject among
them.
One Of the largest of these trusts
the United Founders Corporation-has
just given out its balance sheet show
ing $207, 789, 403.14 in investments.
The total market value of the cor
porationS investments, taken at market
quotations January Is, 1880, was in ex-
cess Of cost" says this corporation.
Theoretically. the management approves
OF the policy Of reporting the corpora
tons investments at either cost or mar
ket quotation as of the day Of the bal
ance sheet, whichever happens to be the
lower figure.
Among New York bankers one gains
the impression that in the future the
larger banks will be very much more
! careful about acting as trustees for in
veStment trusts than they have been in
the past. The spectacular growth of
| these investment trusts, particularly in
the last 10 months, hardly gave the
banks the opportunity to check care
fully the investment methods which
were used by many Of the trusts.
While some of these corporations are
among the strongest financial institu-
tionS in America, there are many that
during the next few months will be
merged with others, with the aim of
overcoming losses incident to the last
stock market debacle and In drastically
cutting overhead expenses.
So far, no State or national legisla-
ton has been passed to regulate invest
ment trust operations.
Customs Costs.
The United States customs officials
in 1929 handled importations valued at
81, lac, 900 900 at cost Of less than
3 cents on the dollar for the amount
collected and less than two-fifths of