Harness Ghost

Vacuum Oil Co. began as a manufacturer of harness oil, changed to machine lubricants; famed Brewster Body Co. made carriages; the Studebakers, wagons. By their adaptability, these companies survived. Because of reluctance to change, J. B. Sickles Co., oldest business concern in St. Louis, last week prepared to close its books and pass on to corporate ghost-land.

J. B. Sickles began making harness in 1834, expanded for many a decade. During the War, Government contracts swelled its gross to $1,500,000 a year. Then, although the company tried making automobile seat-covers, tops and side-curtains, the mounting loss of harness trade was so great as to upset whatever gain these divisions brought. By 1928 the gross was down to $500,000; last year it lost another 20%.

Last week President Julius Littman, in the company 47 years, gloomily said: ''Now there is no business to speak of with the exception of horseback riding equipment. This is growing . . . but decidedly insufficient to bolster up a company the size of ours.

"In our heyday we did a great business with breweries and packing houses. Now those resources are no more because of motorization and the 18th Amendment.

"Some farmers still buy harness. But even they are disappearing. . . .

"I've grown up and lived with the saddlery business all my life. . . . The auto has dealt me a death blow as far as my business is concerned."

After the books are closed and Mr. Littman goes into an automobileless retirement, the riding equipment department, bought by a director, will be run under the name Sickles, Inc. But the few customers of the commercial harness departments will have to ferret out other manufacturers, or else go to the mail order houses, still selling many a horsey thing, perhaps a major factor in the downfall of J. B. Sickles Co.

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