Dividend for Labor

Many a working man has wondered why he is laid off in hard times when his company's stockholders continue to draw fat dividends. Last month Edward F. McGrady, A. F. of L.'s Washington lobbyist, sharply suggested that Industry should reserve funds to tide over its jobless no less than to pay dividends (TIME, Jan. 5). Last week William Francis ("W. O.'') O'Neil, president of General Tire & Rubber Co. of Akron, announced a new and striking plan to pay Labor as well as Capital a dividend. In declaring a special dividend, General Tire's directors decreed that one-half of it should go to stockholders, the other half to a company fund to insure steady employment. Explained President O'Neil: "The fund will be used primarily to finance out-of-season sales. ... It will also provide money which may be loaned to any of our employes who may be temporarily laid off. ... Workers who need their wages in winter months will be given more steady employment through that dull period. . . . We do not regard this as a philanthropic move nor do we have any intention of indulging in any crack-brained theories. It is simply a matter of good business." General Tire & Rubber Co., fifth in its industry,* is the personal creation of President O'Neil. Born in Akron of substantial Irish-Catholic parentage, he went to Holy Cross, played football, studied cotton weaving in a Worcester. Mass., mill. After managing his father's Akron department store for a year, he journeyed to Kansas City where he formed a profitable auto accessory company. In 1915 he returned to Akron, organized General Co. on $200,000, and soon paid out in dividends three times the amount of the capitalization. Now 45, married, father of six, genial, energetic, blue-eyed President O'Neil shuns sport and travel, gives up everything to his company.

*The "Big Four" are Firestone, Goodrich, Goodyear, United States.

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