Goodwin Collapse

In Chicago three years ago a harddriving advertising man named Adolph Oettinger Goodwin performed the remarkable feat of stirring the pulse both of U. S. church folk and U. S. advertisers. The "Goodwin Plan" which he declared he was ready to launch involved enlisting church ladies ("Good News Broadcasters") to sell selected products for 2% commissions which they "might" turn over to pious causes (TIME, Dec. 4, 1933). In Chicago last month, after many an effort to save it, the Goodwin Corp. was a definitive bust. Its assets consisted of some office furniture, a list of 260,000 Good News Broadcasters, 3,000,000 catalogs containing the good news about merchandise, in which each church lady was to have kept at least ten families interested. Liabilities: $300,000. In Federal Court Judge Philip L. Sullivan ordered Goodwin Corp. liquidated, its assets distributed among creditors.

During lengthy negotiations to have Goodwin Corp. reorganized under Section 77-B of the Federal Bankruptcy Act, sideline critics of the Plan, such as the Christian Century, attributed its troubles to the efficacy of church opposition. But since Goodwin Corp. found no difficulty in lining up church folk as eager saleswomen, a better explanation seemed to lie elsewhere. In court Promoter Goodwin announced that "misstatements and greed" among his associates had wrecked the Plan. While $600,000 of stockholders', manufacturers' and creditors' money was being sunk in extravagant promotion, advertising and office maintenance, the Goodwin sales force apparently went to pieces through lack of adequate supervision and direction from above.

Last week Printer's Ink, which as an advertising trade journal had opposed the Plan from the beginning, reported Promoter Goodwin was planning another vast "verbal advertising medium," this time involving union labor instead of the churches.

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