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Scott paper is made at a slick modern plant at Chester, Pa., where scientific improvement is the guiding passion and a minimum wage of 60¢ an hour has obviated labor troubles. Chief reason for the company's success is its product, specially created for softness and absorptive qualities. Two other factors help explain why Scott's big Fourdrinier machines now work a 24-hour day seven days a week (one of them has done so since 1924). As pointed out in the latest Brookings Institution tome, Industrial Price Policies and Economic Progress (TIME, July 18), Scott has led the industry in price-cutting, now sells ScotTissue at 10¢ a roll compared to 45¢ during the War. Secondly, Scott's advertising has been persistent and effective, if somewhat outspoken. In 1932 this advertising reached a pinnacle, which Scott officials recall with obvious pain, in the "acid campaign," whose headlines took the slant of "I'VE GOT TO HAVE *** A MINOR OPERATION!'' Current campaigns still stress "harsh tissue dangers" but somewhat less crassly. A sample comic-strip ad today shows little Jeanie prattling, "It scratches awful, mummy."
Arthur Scott died in 1927 and his place was taken by his Swarthmore fraternity-mate, Thomas Bayard McCabe, who went to work for Scott in 1915 at $10 a week, became its star salesman. Son of a Delaware banker, President McCabe joined with First Vice President Edward S. Wagner in buying out the Scott interest. They now hold about one-sixth of the stock. President McCabe handles sales; Vice President Wagner, operations and finance. They limit themselves to salaries of $16,000.
Last week, back from his annual trip to Scandinavia where Scott buys much of its wood pulp, President McCabe told of his amazement when a Finnish pulp man in a small northern town asked him : "Do you believe Jimmy Roosevelt is making as much money out of his insurance business as the Saturday Evening Post says he is?"