Five years ago smart, eccentric Irving Salomon, president of Michigan City, Ind.'s Royal Metal Manufacturing Co., looked at his annual business (manufacturing chrome-plated metal tubular furniture) and found it about right: $100,000 profit on $1,500,000 gross. He decided to hold it right there, to take no business over that amount, never to be lured into the risks and discomforts of expansion. Through Depression II there were no layoffs at his $580,000 plant. And every year since 1934 Royal's net has just topped $100,000.
Only once did he break his quota, in 1937 when rising prices forced him to hike it $200,000 to...