Sewell Avery-Who Makes $570.000
Sewell Avery-Who Makes $570.000 [Tk* following material wot prepared by tha Montgomery Ward Workere De/tnte Committee, of the United Retail, Wkoleeale mnd Department Store EmI I- y ¦ * ...
...Adding in the $100,000 a year salary Avery geti from Ward's—and not counting such small change as the $1,400 he got last year from U. S. Steel for ornamenting its board of directors or the salary (amount unknown) he draws from U. S. Gypsum—we get a total income of $570,000 a year...
...Big Gyp has made huge profits, as miajh aa 100'i on the cost of production...
...He never loses a chance to denounce it as the work of the Satan, and he is one of the chief financial backers of an outfit called the Western Tax Council, whose ambition it is to repeal the 16th Amendment, If Avery were a Southerner, he would probably be financing a movement to restore slavery...
...The •garee are: 1M0 Loot smarter ef 1141 CacperathMaa— $-0% u oFarmera-m% 7.1% Labor-M.1% »».»% The national ineosse rose 113 per rent...
...But one has to deal with a political figure in political terms...
...Avery in 1939 owned 95,227 shares of Wsrd common, worth currently $4,300,000 and yielding $190,500 a year...
...The more enlightened businessmen whose organ is the Committee for Economic Development deplore this kind of talk, especially in public...
...Downes that I have not given Mr...
...Not so Avery...
...Shostakovitch his political stripes...
...Bat there is nothing to the eeU-made man stuff: Sewell Avery was born with a sterling silver spoon in his mouth...
...Unless one believes that writing for the N*w York Time* makes one a greater musical authority than writing for Tk* Veto Loader, my wot* stands against his...
...wages paid workers increased 109 per cent...
...Downea asserts that Shostakovitch has written a lot ef good music I ssy he hss not...
...You can live pretty well in Chicago on $570,000 a year, even if the Government takes most of it in taxes, and Avery Jives that way...
...Just as I was not able to foretell is 1939 whether Mr...
...This argumentation is rsther sophomoric and picayune, for the says himself that "the composer has volubly explained the geneaal emotional drift of the music" The gentleman reproaches me for political bias...
...His brother, Waldo, is next biggest Gypsum stockholder, with 6'/j% of the common...
...The exterior ia rough all right, and the heart, if not of gold, is at least metallic...
...S. Gypsum and Montgomery Ward...
...Finslly, Avery is a leading member of the little known but extremely potent Commercial Club, whose sixty-odd members are drawn from the top cream of Chicago business...
...Thus in 1932, when building materials generally were selling at 71% of their 1926 price, wallboard prices were at 112% of 1926 levels...
...e Prices on wallboard, Big Gyp's chief product, have been kept sky-high...
...He likes to pose as a down-to-earth, cracker-barrel sort of fellow—the typical self-made man beneath whose rough exterior beats a" heart of gold...
...It ia estimated that even during the worst years of the depression, it was necessary for the company to operate its planta at only 14% of capacity in order to break even...
...Downes grants me some "measure of argument...
...Becoming preateeat at the age ef thirty, Avery seen shewed himself an excellent basiaesamaa...
...01 in Downea, musics] pontile* of the Nets York Tim**, haa reprinted most of my article on Shostakovitch from The New Leader of April 22 in the Sunday edition of the Sew York Time* of April 30...
...There were shudders in more than one Will Street office when Avery recently confided his postwar plans to U. S. Gypsum's stockholders...
...He denounced the idea that business had any responsibility to provide jobs after the war, and added: "A corporation's efficiency is indicated by the number of men it can release from a job, not by the number of men hired...
...Downes for having afforded me the opportunity of reaching the wider circle of his readers, though he has adorned my snslysis with his own rather unnecessary parenthetical remarks and evidently overlooked the customary courtesy of a by-line...
...Downes els© says that Shostakovitch will be a greater musician in a more free and secure Russia of the future...
...Pounded in 1877, the club holds meetings on special call which are considered so important that they are supposed to take precedence over every other engagement in the life of a good Chicago tycoon...
...I can assure Mr...
...And it may be significant that the only known investment of any size which Col...
...He is a trustee of the University of Chicago—which is one of the biggest stockholders in both U. S. Gypsum and Ward's- and the ib 1,1,1 of a $250,0000 Distinguished Service Chair to that university...
...Avery bought his stock during the next few years, has at present a paper profit of seme $3,400,000 on the deal...
...He is a director of U. S. Steel, Armour, People's Gas, Pure Oil, Pullman and Northern Trust companies which dominate the heart of Chicago big business...
...The steel oaten laid that the average weekly wage ef ateelwerhera ia $40.71...
...The figures should have been 800 billions to one trillion gold rubles, rather than 800 millions to one billion...
...Some of the arguments are specious and self-contradictory...
...For years I have stood in silent awe before this man's artistry that avoids a definite viewpoint on most musical subjects...
...25.8 per cent for hoesiag...
...Morgan A Co.—Ward's is a "Morgan company...
...He is tall, slender, with thin features and deepset eyes, and he looks a let like Henry Ford...
...Downes would stop writing his glow-ng articles on Sibelius' music by 1942, I sm in as position to ssy now what kind of music Shostakovitch sill write in the future...
...Uaataat itse»*wtmta, urging revision ef the Little Steel formula, cited Department ef Commerce statistics to prove that the aercentsge ef the namsosl hi as see received by laser haa fanes daring the wax...
...Sewell Avery-Who Makes $570.000 [Tk* following material wot prepared by tha Montgomery Ward Workere De/tnte Committee, of the United Retail, Wkoleeale mnd Department Store EmI I- y ¦ * CIO] A CCORDING to Fortune magazine, Sewell Avery "is pretty generally heW to be the No...
...he doesn't say why...
...McCormick, publisher of The Ckieago Tribune, has ever made in an outside enterprise is the 9,000 shares of U. S. Gypsum common he holds (as of 1939...
...Judging from current aetititie* of today's Commercial Clubmen, tk* momber* retain tkeir traditional tagaeity.] • * • Who Is SeweH Avery...
...He is a businessman with an outlook sn bleakly reactionary that sometimes he scares other businessmen...
...The average family haa expenses 79e higher than the sverage weekly wage...
...Income $570,000 o Year—fin DV the end of the twenties, Sewell Avery had made so much money in Big Gyp and had acquired such a reputation as a smart businessman that he began looking around for new world to conquer (at a reasonable rate of profit...
...Field"* for*, eigkt icns_jn*tified a decade later wken Federal cavalry rode into tke city from Fort Skeridan and broke the great Pullman ttrike...
...21 on "Competition and Monopoly in Industry"): e Between 1929 and 1937, Big Gyp bought up ten competitors, produced 57% of the cslcined gypsum produced in the latter year...
...article by Alexander Bsird in the Issue of April 29, the claims of the Allies against Germany, according to Eugene Vargas, Soviet economist, are wrongly stated...
...The World Of Sewell Avery QEWEI.L AVERY'S ideas about things aie just whit you'd etfpect in a rich man seventy years old -only more so...
...Downea, affirm his belief in the necessary sepsrs-tion of art and news-value but close his eyes to the pernicious game of ReUhtkulturkmmmtr and thus unwittingly arrive at the destination Prattrfa desires...
...Avery has close ties with the two leading newspapers...
...It seems to me one csn approach this whole problem of politics and music in «n« of two ways: he can unearth the political implications, ami in this way point out tha damaging influence ot everyday politics on artistic creation...
...The humorless Department of Justice was probably bothered by such facts ss these (cited on pages 161-183 of the Temporary National Economic Committee's Monograph No...
...THI NEW lEADit Mtfl smVf or nsnosai lacoa...
...Avery haa always insisted that U. S. Gypsum (known in the trade as "Big Gyp") is just an honest little enterprise trying to make aa honest living in the big competitive world...
...If I recall correctly it was the Sew York Time* which made such s do-do about Shostakovich's fire fighting in connection with the Seventh Symphony...
...In 1885, a year of great labor "unrcit," Marthall Field tuggeeted that the Club put up the money to buy land for a Federal Army poet near the city...
...He and his wife then owned 117,866 shares of Gypsum common (104% of shares outstanding), worth st today's market prices $8,500,000, and yielding a yearly income of $235,700...
...The Department of Justice fsiled to see the joke, however, and in the summer of 1940 brought several anti trust suits against Big Gyp, charging monopolistic use of patents...
...Downes' scant additions did not throw any further light on the controversy...
...But Avery is an 1896-model unreconstructed industrialist...
...If the New Dealers could understand the rigors of free enterprise, they would feel leas need of running to ask for regulstions...
...DecHaJ, Tk...
...In the...
...In 1939 his* holdings in U. S. Gypsum and Ward's were made public by the Temporary National Economic Committee (see Monograph No...
...He has ran the company se esa-riently (and rnthleesly) that ft has maintained its meawUstie position and has consistently mama large areata...
...He is intimately allied with J F...
...ef which J5.4 per con* gees for feed...
...Most of his colleagues have more or less accepted the income tax, which has been part of the Constitution (16th Amendment) for half a century...
...They also owned 1,050,000 worth of Gypssw preferred, from which income ia $41,400 a year...
...It per cent for emtaJag...
...Ward's stockholders meetings have often been stormy under his regime, but Avery generally rises to the occasion, turning aside his critics' thrusts with humor and profanity...
...He talks a lot, tells long stories, and can turn on s considersble voltage of charm when he wants to...
...G..dealing frees the University ef Michigan hi 1604, Avery wemt hate he* faaWa ¦solasas...
...It hardly needs to be added that President Avery ef Big Gyp is an srdent believer in Free Enterprise, and that he has contributed generously to the Liberty League and other idealistic organisations devoted to protecting this delicate creature against the ravages of New Deal bureaucracy...
...8.' Gyps am Co...
...Just how rich Avery is today no one but himself knows...
...He turned it down at a mere 100,000 a year salary, but accepted when Morgan added an option to buy 100,000 shares of Ward common stock st $11 a share—about half the then market price...
...Here again, he at once agrees and disagrees with everything I have safrl...
...Tke oekem* went through, and the retult teas the founding p/ Fort Sherjdan, thirty milre from tke Loop...
...He accuses me of inaccuracy because I have said that almost all of the composer's symphonies hare titles and descriptions...
...Slight Error...
...Monopoly in the United States is a joke," he told Big Gyp's stockholders in 1939...
...Avery is probably the only man in the country who is the chief executive and the biggest stockholder of two of the 2tH) biggest non-banking corporations...
...CEWEI I. LEE AVERY is seventy years old...
...He waa one of the three men who arranged for the late Secretary of the Navy Knox to become the publisher ef The Ckieago Daily \eu» a decade ago...
...When the great $300,000,000 mailorder house of Montgomery Ward A Co., second biggest merchandising company in the country, got into difficulties after the 1929 collapse, the House of Morgan offered the presidency to Avery...
...1 Chicago busi-m wnai The statement is accurate...
...The number ef civilian workers roaa from $4.7M,0ot te 42,700.600...
...His father was a prosperous Michigan building material magnate who sent young Sewell to prep scheei aasf eseVge...
...which i. ini .» merged wish a osoam other rempaniea te ferss tke monopolistic IT...
...or he csn, like Mr...
...22.7 per cent for miscellaneous eipenaes...
...The real figors is very likely considerably higher, since Avery m«y well have large holdings in other enterprises, and sines the war boom has probably had a beneficent effect on Avery's personal fortunes...
...Nor is his influence on the nation's second biggest city limited to its industries...
...Whom he resembles in other ways also...
...I ** no fortune teller...
...Though be refers to me alternately as a writer and a gentleman, he gives the general impression that I did not know what I was talking abont, but remains in basic accord with my contention...
...Shostakovich and Politics An Answer to Olin Downes By Kurt List A »T A RENTLY aroused by a remark about the srterio-sclerotic music critics of the New York newspapers, Mr...
...I am grateful to Mr...
...The najture of the dub may be t%gge*ted by a little-known incident from its past...
Vol. 27 • May 1944 • No. 19
