MANUFACTURING: 100,000,000 Saws

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This year Disston expects to come close to its 1929 sales record: $12,000,000 (about two-thirds from saws). With a net worth of about $8,500,000, Disston does not tell its profits, is owned lock-stock-&-barrel by the Disston family, who are hardy, friendly, prolific. Six Disstons work for the company today. Oldest is Board Chairman Henry (grandson of Founder Henry), who presides over board meetings from his apartment at Philadelphia's Bellevue-Stratford. Head of purchasing is sporty William Dunlop Disston, 52, whose son William, now in the shops, is the first fourth-generation Disston to enter the business. Seventh president of Disston is mild, balding Samuel Horace Disston, 59, grandson of Founder Henry's brother. He hardened files, sharpened saws, etc., for eleven years before the family let him out of the shops. Thoroughly acquainted with every angle of the vast business, he carries a black card in his pocket which, lettered in Chinese, he translates as: CONFUCIUS SAY DISSTON HAS THE EDGE.

Last week President Disston moseyed through his strikebound plant, chatting with watchmen, smiling at a troupe of young kittens tangled up in the heaps of sawdust. He announced that the firm would content itself with presenting engraved Disston 0-95 Masterpiece saws to

Philadelphia's Mayor Lamberton, Pennsylvania's Governor James and the U. S.'s President Roosevelt in commemoration of its 100th birthday and the 100,000,000 saws it has made.