This week some 332,000 employes of the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. (the Bell System) were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the invention of the telephone.†
Last week they had heard their new President (quiet, deft Walter Sherman Gifford) announce with pleasure that 57,000 employes* (with an average of 10 shares each) would share with the 362,179 shareholders of the company in the $107,405,046 net profits of 1925. This amounts to $11.79 a share on the $911,181,400 average stock outstanding, against the $11.31 on the $805,145,900 of 1924. The company's business has been prospering steadily. Gross income in 1925 was $180,458,912 against $154,082,836 the previous year. Dividends at 9% just declared total $81,044,426, against $70,918,227 in 1924. Six million dollars was set aside for contingencies, and into surplus went $20,360,620 ($17,128,094 in 1924).††
These figures are for the American Telephone & Telegraph Co., a corporation which owns all or a majority of the stock of some score and a half of subsidiary and affiliated concerns: New England T. & T., Southern New England Tel., New York Tel., Bell Telephone of Pa., Chesapeake & Potomac Tel. (N. Y.), Chesapeake & Potomac Tel. of Baltimore, Chesapeake & Potomac Tel. of Va., Chesapeake & Potomac of W. Va., Cumberland T. & T., Ohio Bell, Cincinnati & Suburban Bell (29%) Michigan Bell, Indiana Bell, Wisconsin Tel., Illinois Bell, Northwestern Bell, Southwestern Bell, Mountain States T. & T., Pacific T. & T., Bell Tel. Laboratories, Bell Tel. Securities, Bell Tel. of Canada, Central Union Tel., Cuban-American T. & T., Western Electric (almost exclusive manufacturing agent), 195 Broadway Corp., 205 Broadway Corp. Portions of their individual earnings go to the profit of the parent corporation.
A. T. & T. stock holdings in these companies now aggregate $1,027,448,629 ($991,834,103 in 1924). Total assets on the parent company's books show $1,645,565,373 ($1,478,147,221 in 1924). Over this vast system presides a comparatively young man—Walter Sherman Gifford. When he was graduated from Harvard in 1905 he became Assistant Secretary and Treasurer of the Western Electric Co. at Chicago. The Bell System for years has been encouraging alert college graduates to enter its organization. Thorough courses in telephonic practices are at the disposal of everyone. Students advance as their abilities mature. No cliques of office politics hamper promotion. So after three years Mr. Gifford became Chief Statistician for the parent corporation, the job he held until 1916, when he went into War work. He became Supervising Director of the Committee on Industrial Preparedness of the National Consulting Board, Director of the U. S. Council of National Defense and Advisory Commission, Secretary of the U. S. Representation on the Inter-Allied Munitions Council. After the War he returned to his A. T. & T. statistical work, soon became a Vice President. In 1919 venerable Theodore N. Vail,** once working superintendent of the Railway Mail Service, his presidency to Harry Bates Thayer, then a Vice President and Director. Last year Mr. Thayer was made Chairman of the Board, and Mr. Gifford, at 40, was made President.