The Wilmington morning star., 1940-03-15
WASHINGTON
DAYBOOK
By JACK STINNETT

WASHINGTON, March 14.-Some of these
people who sit in the seats of the nations
mighty high salaries are going to be taken
down a few pegs.
Before many moons, Secretary Morgenthau' us
internal revenue gang is going to give that list
Of 400 top salaries published back in January
a whale of a shaking up. It'll come in the
form of an additional list and after it's made
public, the "400' is not going to be quite so ex-
elusive. One guess, and it's a darned good one,
considering the source, is that the new list will
show 200 more persons who dragged down over
So 900 in 1888.
Prodded for an explanation of why they
didn't put the whole list out in the first place,
the treasury boys said their bookkeepers just
weren't caught UP when congress met and
called for the salary figures. Putting out a
partial list was a mistake they won't make
again. The deluge Of queries and complaints
has been a headache. Now some of the first
rate salaries advertised in January are going to
appear second-rate-that is, if you can call any
salary in the SIS, OO0-and-up bracket second-rate.
The suggestion already has been passed along
to Mr.. Morgenthau that he title the pleted
list americas 800 Families" but, shucks, you
know how literal-minded he is.
49,
V-P's in the Money
What's principally going to upset the big
apples in the 1888 salary cart is that the
movie companies, Loew's, Inc, and it's subsid-
ldIy, MelFO-JOluWy H-Mdyef, anu warner biOlu-
ers are going to be in the new list. The pack
ing companies will also be in the revised list,
but that won't make much difference. The
slaughterhouse bigwlgs never were in a class
with the movie crowd. You can't expect salaries
for feeding people like those for entertaining
them.
Right off the bat, you can expect to see the
s~oapsuds king, F. A. Countway, president of
Lever Bros, washed out of first place as the
nations highest-paid corporation executive.
Louis B. Mayer, production executive of LoeW's
will see to that. In 1887, Mayer was paid ST.
161, 1853 for eXecutiving, plus a measly little
$134, $50 for vice-presidencing for MGM Now, if
Mr.. Mayer had taken any lig cut in 1888, sure.
ly that gossipy village of Hollywood would
have heard. But suppose it didn't and suppose
Mr.. Mayer was told he wasn't worth more than
half that. His salary still would be more than
$500, 900 and that's enough to push Mr.. Count
way out of first place so fast it'll look as if
he skidded on a bar of his own soap.
If Loew's and MGM are still paying the same
old salaries, Mr.. Countway won't even finish
second, because in 1887 they paid ]. Robert
Rubin 1851 1923 for being vice-president and N.
M. Schenck (his friends call him "Nick'D $4S9,.
6O2 for being president. That's another screwy
thing about the movie business, V-P's some
times get more money than presidents.
Whether the Brothers Warner will come in
there is something else to speculate on. AS
a matter of fact, Mr.. Countway, with his $780,.
73 pay envelope, may not even be in the run.
ming.
What About CIaudette?
It's a pretty good bet, too, that Claudette
Colbert, with her 1901 ,944.51, won't hold her
place as the highest-paid actress and the ma
tons No. 1 female breadwinner. Greta Carlo
works for MGM, you know. Her 1887 salary
was $472, 499 and Carlo never was a girl to
work for less this year than she was making
last. She's had a contract for years and if it's
on a sliding scale, it isn't down. There's Bette
Davis to be heard from, too, and Joan Craw-
ford, whose contract always has called for big
money. And Jeanette Macdonald and Myrna
Loy-and among the actors, Clark Gable, Will
liam Powell, Paul NUM- and Edward G. Robin.
son. Those boys don't work for pennies.
All in all, the completed list should make
a pretty fair showing for 1898. With COG men
and women drawing down more than Z 5000,
it couldn't have been exactly a depression year.
These top-salaried men come mostly from
that population group numbering 24,OOO,OOO
Americans over 35 years old. That means there's
about one chance in 100000 of you or me or
Neighbor Jones getting into that kind of
poopaJ