Business & Finance: Strange Passage

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Tires. About 80% of rubber is used by the automotive industry, and most of this goes into tires and tubes. After a very erratic period, the tire industry is being stabilized through changes in the distributing end. Lowered profits on each unit have made dealers try to increase sales by handling only nationally-known brands. This has helped to eliminate competition among the manufacturers, for whereas there were 250 to 300 tire companies in 1921, there were 115 in 1926, and 85 last year of which about 30 are important. While dealers have been eliminating the manufacturers, the manufacturers have been slashing away at the ranks of dealers, whose number has dropped from 175,000 to below 100,000. This has been due to the entry of the companies themselves into retailing, and the establishment of master service stations by Firestone and Goodrich, with Goodyear expected to follow soon.

Control. No individual stock purchases gave Mr. Eaton the Goodyear control. It came in a complex and roundabout fashion, both through the holding of Continental Shares, Inc., which is sponsored by Otis & Co., through the holdings of private investment trusts in the Eaton family, and, in a great part, through stock owned by friends.

In Cyrus Eaton therefore is embodied a new type of U. S. capitalist, not satisfied with merely investing or managing, but directing the flow of invested capital. And, to the especial pride of Clevelanders, he is one of the biggest of first-magnitude tycoons who have their base of operations west of Wall Street.