During the bull market American Telephone & Telegraph paid no extra dividends, split no stock, put all its extra earnings into surplus. By 1932 that surplus was big enough to have paid each & every stockholder $31. That year, when A. T. & T. and affiliates earned only $5.96, President Walter Gifford took $58,000,000 out of surplus, paid his 700,000 stockholders the customary $9 dividend.
Last week A. T. & T. and affiliates reported earnings for 1933 of only $5.38 a share. Bell System telephones were down only 630,000 against 1,650,000 for 1932, but...
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