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Show 'PS (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) A REAL PICTURE OF WEALTH DISTRIBUTION IN A HOTEL ROOM in Wilmington, Wilming-ton, Del., I picked up a printed financial statement of the DuPont company which some one had left. It was an unusual statement of its kind, in that it showed the total receipts re-ceipts of the company and then in totals and percentages, the expenditures expendi-tures of the total receipts. Of those expenditures, 68 per cent was paid to labor, 21 per cent, as I now recall it, was paid for taxes to support government, 4 per cent went to stockholders as interest on their investment and 2 per cent to management, which included salaries sal-aries of executives and office employees. em-ployees. The other 5 per cent went to reserve, a provision for bad years so the company might continue to operate and continue to employ labor la-bor when times were bad. That morning I had an appointment appoint-ment with Pierre duPont, head of that company. I took the statement along and during my visit said to Mr. DuPont: "I believe you are doing your company, the people who work for it, and the public generally a grave injury when you do not publicize the facts contained in this statement. I realize it is public property and that copies of it have been sent to newspapers. news-papers. One, for example, went to the New York Times, where it was placed on the desk of the financial editor, who was interested in just two things the receipts of the company com-pany and the dividends paid stockholders. stock-holders. The big story it tells is the dividend of 68 per cent paid to labor. That is a front-page story which the financial editor overlooked." over-looked." What is true of the DuPont company com-pany is equally true of all industry. The big news of their operations is what dividends they pay to labor and to the government. On an average, approximately 70 per cent of each dollar of value produced pro-duced by industry goes to labor, to those whose work produced . that value. That, and the percentage paid to the government as taxes, are just as much dividends paid by industry as is the percentage paid to those who provide the tools neededthe need-edthe working capital. A general distribution of such information in-formation on the part of all industry would solve the ever-present friction between labor and capital. It would give labor, and the public, a real picture pic-ture of the continuous distribution of the wealth of the nation. Every payday in every industry is a part of that system of distribution. TOGETHER WE STAND AS AMERICANS WHAT WE NEED in America is Americans, not self-interest seeking classes. We have had all too much of minority mi-nority rule, of classes demanding and receiving consideration at the expense of the whole. We cannot consider business as one class, and provide for business at the expense of labor and the farm. We cannot consider labor and provide pro-vide for it at the expense of business busi-ness and the farm. Nor can we consider the farm and provide for it at the expense of labor la-bor and business. There is a greater interest than any one or any number of classes. That is the interest of all as Americans. Amer-icans. Unless all classes work together for the general interests, we will lose all the opportunity America offers. Business, labor and farms cannot work as separate classes, they must work together as Americans, or it will be just too bad for all of us. THIS MAN'S HOBBY IS ELEPHANT PHOTOGRAPHING ON BUSY STATE STREET in Chicago Chi-cago there is a doctor who works 18 months out of each two years that he may have the other six months to devote to his hobby, which is that of photographing elephants in the jungles of Africa. Dr. Frank Thompson is a small, frail individual, weighing about 130 pounds. For six months of each two years he penetrates the wastes of the Dark Continent, accompanied only by a small number of native boys and living on whatever the country provides that he may bring back movies of the great beasts to show to his friends. Frank Thompson is credited with knowing more about African elephants ele-phants than any other man in this country, and he has certainly had some harrowing experiences with them in their native haunts, but of which he talks very little, except to a few close friends. He is a man well worth knowing. RURAL AMERICANS JUST WHAT PLACE rural America Amer-ica plays in the nation is evidenced by the fact that a trifle over 50 per cent of the members of the national house of representatives are elected from districts in which there is no town of more than 5.000 people. The rural people can. and do, control the destinies of these United States. MRS. ROOSEVELT has found that Congressman Dies was not far wrong in his judgment of the American Amer-ican Youth Congress. |