"Pass It Along"

During the War many a company declared "Red Cross Dividends." Last week National Lead Co. (Dutch Boy white lead, Babbitt metal, paint products) surprised stockholders with an extra dividend of 25-c- a share. "The directors feel," explained President Edward Joel Cornish, "that they have no right to give away the funds of the company . . . towards relief of unemployed. ... By declaring an extra dividend we give the money directly to the stockholders with the request, however, that they in turn pass it along. There is no obligation to do so and if the stockholders themselves need the money it is theirs to keep.'' The extra payment comes to $75,000.

President Cornish, noted for honest statements, candor, added that the company's business had been bad, showed no signs of improvement. That any dividend at all can be paid, he said, was because of the policy adopted in 1916 when the company resolved "to keep itself financially strong until the difficulties and losses, if any. attending the readjustment to normal conditions after the War are more definitely known." In the same spirit, he told shareholders last spring that if the $5 rate should have to be reduced "then all the work and planning of your management will have been in vain."

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