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Show " THE AMERICAN WAYj -pil LEFT-WINGITIS By Georg' Peck-J&L An individual suffering from "Left-Wingitis" has lost all sense of moral values. One of my "left-wing" acquain-, acquain-, tances was haranguing a group of us about the tremendous profits pro-fits "Big Business" rolled up in 1947. Turning to me he asked, "Do you know that the DuPont Company made $75 million more net profit last year than it did in 1929? No wonder we've got high prices." This question was supposed to floor me because my anti-capitalistic acquaintance was quite correct. The DuPont Company actually made net earnings in 1947 of $98,900,000 which was $75,600,000 more than the average aver-age of $23,300,000 for the two prosperous years 1928-1929. This represented an increase of 324 per cent. But, running true to character and in kppninp with tho nictnm. ary "Party Line" technique, our "Fellow-Traveler", was telling only part of the story. He failed to add that in 1947, the DuPont Company had an investment of $1,015,800,000, as compared with an average operating investment of $237,100,000 for the two years of 1928-1929. This was an increase in-crease of $778,700,000,. or 323 per cent. , In other words, while there was an increase of 324 per cent in profits, there was an increase in investment of 328 per cent, which means the per cent return on the operating investment cm-ployed cm-ployed in 1947, was actually slightly less than the average for the two boom years of 1928-1929.. 1928-1929.. As ( to the DuPont Company contributing to high prices, I pointed out to our half-truth tell- j ing friend, that DuPon't sales j prices show an average-increase in 1947 of 15 per cent over 1939. contrasted with an" increase of 97 per cent on all wholesale prices according to a computation computa-tion of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.- Holding its sales prices to this comparatively small increase of 15 per cent from 1939 1947 was accomplished while the DuPont Du-Pont Company was paying an increase in-crease of 113 per cent for its principal raw materials, paying an average increased hourly compensation, com-pensation, to its wage-roll employees em-ployees of 79 per cent, and an increase of 60 per cent in taxes. These increases in the .major elements in the cost of DuPont's doing business were made by economies resulting from an increasingly in-creasingly large volume of production pro-duction and by the progressive improvements in manufacturing processes and facilities. All of this information was available to our business-hating friend. The self-same report from which he got his figure of the big increase in DuPont profits, pro-fits, also gives the complete facts. That's where I got them from the 1947 Annual Report of that Company. As I was about to leave the group, a newcomer joined it. Our business defamer , pounced on him with, "Do you know that DuPont Company made $75 million mil-lion more net profit last year I than it did back in 1929?" That's all he asked; he added nothing further. Up to this point I had been giving our loud-mouthed friend the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps I reasoned, he had just been misinformed. mis-informed. But, having been given giv-en the facts, he continued to smear by stating a half-truth. Which brings me back to what I said in the opening sentence of this article, "An individual suffering suf-fering from 'Left-Wingitis' has lost all sense of moral values.". |