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After the "purge," all employes who had "proven their loyalty" were rehired, but the merits of the Hupp squabble remained as deep a mystery as ever. Though Mr. Andrews points to the fact that in suits against the former management for wasting assets he recovered for Hupp no less than $500,000, his own reputation as a corporate manager has by no means escaped reproach.
Cheerily damning the Stock Exchange, the "opposition" and sundry other enemies, Promoter Andrews was last week negotiating with the Federal Reserve for a $2,000,000 direct-loan-to-industry. Sharing in the first-quarter motor boom (see p. 66), Hupp now has 3,500 unfilled orders on its books but production has been hampered by lack of cash & credit. And it was further hampered last week when the American Federation of Labor called a strike in the Hupp plant.
Quite unquenchable, Archie Andrews was nevertheless bursting with excitement over new developments in his swift ideas of persuading people to help sell his automobiles (TIME, March n). Not the least of the contracts which Mr. Drake had temporarily enjoined was one with Seminole Paper Corp., an International Paper subsidiary which makes toilet paper. No routine agreement for the purchase of plant & office supplies, the Seminole contract concerned a grandiose scheme for obtaining the names of prospective automobile buyers.
In a nation-wide promotion of its toilet paper, Seminole has been conducting a contest with 30 Hupmobiles as grand prizes. At least one-half of each full-page Seminole advertisement in publications like the American Weekly and Satevepost was given over to blazing publicity for Hupp.
Not content with that, however, Mr. Andrews proceeded to turn clerks in grocery stores handling Seminole toilet paper into Hupp salesmen. Each clerk was given a book of blank introductions to local Hupp dealers, asked to fill in the name of any grocery customer interested in either the Seminole contest or a new Hupmobile. If the local dealer later sold a Hupmobile to a grocery customer, the store clerk received $5 from Hupp. If twelve of the store clerk's prospects bought Hupmo-biles, he received a Hupmobile free. With Seminole planning bigger & better contests, Super-Salesman Andrews, who is never given to understatement, now says that the results of his toilet paper tie-up are so amazing that his competitors are preparing to gang him.