Tensas Gazette

The benefits that will undoubtedly result to farmers from the recent incorporation of the International Harvester Company which took over the business of the five leading harvester manufacturers have probably not been considered by a large portion of the farming community.

The economical necessity of a consolidation of the interests of manufacturers and those of their farmer customers must be apparent to any one who understands the present situation. The increased and increasing cost of material, manufacturing and selling—the latter in consequence of extreme and bitter competition between manufacturers and their several selling agents—has made the business unprofitable. The two alternatives left for the manufacturers were either the increasing of the prices of machines or the reduction of the cost of manufacture and sales. The latter could only be accomplished by concentrating the business in one company.

As can readily be seen, the forming of the new company was not a stock jobbing operation but a centering of mutual interests. There is no watered stock; the capitalization is conservative and represented by actual and tangible assets. There is no stock offered to the public, it having all been subscribed and paid for by the manufacturers and their associates.

The management of the International Harvester Company is in the hands of well known, experienced men. The officers are: President, Cyrus H. McCormick; Chairman Executive Committee, Charles Deering; Chairman Finance Committee, George W. Perkins; Vice-Presidents, Harold F. McCormick, James Deering, Wm. H. Jones and John J. Glessner; Secretary and Treasurer, Richard F. Howe. The members of the Board of Directors are as follows: Cyrus Bentley, William Deering, Charles Deering, James Deering, Eldridge M. Fowler, E. H. Gary, John J. Glessner, Richard F. Howe, Abram M. Hyatt, William H. Jones, Cyrus H. McCormick, Harold F. McCormick, George W. Perkins, Norman B. Ream, Leslie N. Ward, Paul D. Cravath.

The International Harvester Company owns five of the largest harvester plants in existence, the Champion, Deering, McCormick, Milwaukee and Plano plants that have been producing nearly or quite 90 per cent. of the harvesting machines of the world. It also owns timber and coal lands, blast furnaces and a steel plant; it has a new factory in the process of construction in Canada.

It is believed that the cost of producing grain, grass and corn harvesting machines will be so reduced that the present low prices can be continued, and that consequently the results cannot be otherwise than beneficial to the farmer. To maintain the present prices of these machines means to continue and increase the development of the agriculture of the world, for no one cause has contributed or can contribute more to this development than the cheapness of machines for harvesting grains.