The Durant news. (Durant, Miss.) 1882-1985, 1940-10-03
"BEHIND THE SCENES IN
AMERICAN BUSINESS"
By John Croddock

New York, Sept. 30.-Business-Every index
you turn to gives out the same answer to the "how's
business?" query, namely: Industrial activity is zoom-
ing, with no let-down in sight for at least six months
The Bureau of Agricultural Economies, whose fore
casts have been consistently accurate, figures the Of
ficial index at the close of 1939-which was at the
height Of the firstblush war boomlet-and that the
output for the whole IL months of 1940 will be 10
per cent ahead of 1889.
In the important department of consumers pur-
chasing power, further gains are expected, with in
dustrial workers incomes, by the end of the year,
figured to hit the 1887 peak. You may not remember
it, but that top time in 1887 was, at least for awhile,
equal to the average for the 192429 period.
Washington-With a shortage of skilled workers
for the defense industries threatening, the Railroad
Retirement board has advised the National Defense
commission that it may find the personnel for much
of this work in the ranks of thousands of u%nemploy-
ed railroad workers. 1t seems the board had surveyed
this field at the time it first became apparent that
skilled wrkers would be at a premium. Out of 49,,
900 replies received to a QUESTIONABLE sent out by
the board |. was found that almost half this number
or 1927 workers-had been trained in occupations
that would make their skills adaptable to defense in
dustries. Also, the replies indicated that 1858 would
be ready, willing and able to bid for defense jobs
anywhere in the United States"
Rubber Type-Printing history is being made at
the North River Press in New York where the first
high-speed web-fed press for printing books entirely
from rubber plates is now in full-time operation.
Described as an advance in printing technique COM
parable to the linotype 'and rotary press, the new
machine brings to book publishing new economies in
make-ready time, ink consumption and storage space.
The Webendorfer press makes use only of rubber
plate facsimiles perfected after several years OF
joint development by Econo Products, Inc. and the B.
F. Goodrich rubber research laboratories These take
the place f electrotypes or stereotypes and are made
from type, line, benday plates or coarse screen half
tones. Plates can be cured in five minutes, and nodded
direct to spring brass and formed for attachment
to the press cylinders. Complete pate changes and
made-ready are accomplished in about half the time
required for normal metal-plate book printing, it is
said, while duplicate plates can be made and put on
the press ready to run in ten minutes.
Bi. O. Bu.inen-Aware of what conscription
might do as q scales-discourager, several stores in
widely-scattered cities have come up with a money
back-if-drafted" guarantee (if you volunteer, though,
no rebate) :. Raw silk, rubber and pepper COM
modify market folk are following the dire political
developments in the Far East very closely these days;
so far, despite the ominousness of the situation, news
from that quarter has not upset the suures markets
in these commodities. Sales of the Cleveland
Tractor company in the fiscal year ending September
80 are expected to show a gain of Is per cent,
largest for any 12-month period since 1887 IA
new soybean flour mill is being built in Weyauwega,
Wisconsin, to make a new, Underground variety of
this flour, which has had a sensational rise in the
last Is years The magazine, Steel, says that
social security payments to the government represent
IL per cent Of American industry's total tax bill
and amount to $32 per shareholder and $66 per
employee.
Arbitration-With events in the Far East taking
an ominous turn, the news that trade channels with
the Dutch East Indies, Australia, the PHILIPPINES, the
Hawaiian Islands, and New Zealand will be cleared
as much as possible by the American Arbitration As
ISOLATION becomes important for businessmen in the
United States. That news comes from Cornelius Van
derbit Whitney, board chairman of Pan American
Anyways and director of the Arbitration Association.
Whitney just arrived in the U. S. after a few-week
tour by air of the embattled areas plus visits to
Hongkong and Singapore. Speaking as chairman of
the Associations board of liaison officers, Whitney
announced that every effort would be made to keep
commercial disputes from d~isrupting trade between
the Americas and the countries in the Pacific. Such
disputes, he declared, may even now be settled quickly
by mail through the Association without the disputants
ever seeing one another.
These small cell which it is sitting.
I H. ;pciSt that ~ nann1a ,rA1