Document zzGbqMVz2q9rjg1J8Y1Jag6Q3

f---------------------------- ACME WHITE LEAD AND COLOR WORKS , fS9 DSTROIT, MICHIGAN, IT. S. A. ' Ji+m* 0007-S WP-047495 N21663 Ac me Wh it s Le a d a n d Co l o r Wo r k s DETROIT. MICHIGAN. U. A A. Fe b r u a r y . 1998 WBZJ 0007-SWP-047496 0007-SWP-000115703 0 i \ r Kxtenor ol Admiiuitrjtion Building A . . .. J 0007-SWP-047497 0007-SWP-000115704 r MERICA,"said a Congressman ) in Washington recently, "has now become the `Paint Pail' of the world. and the material from that pail is color* ing a large portion of the earth. The time is coming when the paint in dustry of the United States will rank with the steel industry in importance." Even these words, spoken by a man favoring government education of the people in the uses of paint and care of their homes, fall short of describing the actual "paint situation "as it exists in the United States today. The demand for paint has, in reality, only begun--only the surface of the business has been skimmed over, and yet it has developed into one of our most powerful industries. This is not a statement made at random. There are proofs of it--proofs Avnnrwhare* nnp mnv Io a It rmf Anltr 0007-SWP-047498 0007-SWP-000115705 statistical proofs, but "proofs of the eye" -- proofs that every man must understand and recognize. As one rises from his bed in the morning, the first ., thing that meets his gaze is color--the " color of paint and the lustre of varnish; he sees it at his breakfast table; it is still with him when he leaves for his work, color--color everywhere. Not a step during the day can he take without paints and varnishes in all their hues, and in all their combinations, greeting his vision. They are a part of life--an artificial but necessary part; indispen sable, ever-present. And they are becoming more and more so. Science, in paint making, is not only developing better and better products for the use of the skilled painters and decorators who must be employed by every person who cares properly for his home, but it Is, at the same time, manufacturing more 0007-S WP-047499 *V \vfiu\M i. mvt'K* It KTRKE WKtTR \ .ce* President \LRM*TT'eKAtFjrrrWHITE TKOMNS N'EAL 5twrrUr> kcvi dencrat Manage" 0007-SWP-047500 0007-SWP-000115707 * ; i 0007-SWP-04750I 0007-SWP-000115708 and more products in such simple and useful forms that they may be employed by the home-owners themselves. Thus, there are paints, enamels, varnishes, etc., which he, or the housewife, is constantly finding useful, in fact indis pensable, in the care of their household woodwork, floors, tables, chairs, and other furniture. To the millions of home owners in this country these have become money-saving necessities; they play their parts, in a way, as surely as food and clothes; these "house beautifiers, '* as one clever housewife aptly puts it, "have become almost as necessary as soap and water." Statistics in themselves are usually uninteresting; but there is a romance to the figures which tell the story of paint. These figures show, more than anything else, the great future in store for the paint and varnish industry. It is esti- .gMUj. y. 0007-SWP-047502 0007-SWP-000115709 mated that there are 30,000,000 structures of wood and brick in the United States; there are unnumbered millions of other objects, from billboards to our hundreds i of thousands of railway cars, upon which paints and varnishes must be used. And these "objects of demand" are increasing so rapidly that for many years to come the paint factories will be kept busy supplying home demand alone, saying nothing of the constantly increasing foreign demand, which is growing because of the recognized superiority of American paints and var nishes over those made in other lands. In America, as in no other place in the world, the making of paint has been re duced to a science, and for that reason, as the Congressman quoted above, said "America has become and will remain the Paint Pail of the world." T 0007-SWP-047503 0007-SWP-000115710 J V* iVoiUmi'* Office j a iVne-al Manager's Office ti 1? t i j J t ; 0007-SWP-047504 0007-SWP-000115711 <noup of Private 0007-SWP-047505 0007-SWP-000115712 -i And it is with pride that we are able to say that the Acme White Lead and Color Works, for the popularity and superiority of its products, the scien tific care of its management, and the tremendous increase of its business, leads the van as progressive paint and varnish manufacturers. Few stories of human achievement have been filled with greater interest than the building up of this world's greatest paint insti tution. Just twenty-four years ago, when the business was started on a $10,000 capital by William L. Davies, its president, and Thomas Neal, its secre tary and general manager, the first order was for one barrel of paint. Recently there were on the books of the company for one month's "im mediate delivery" orders for 162 car loads of paint, besides innumerable smaller orders. These extremes--the 0 yr OOO7-SWP-0475O6 0007-SWP-000115713 extremes of only a little more than two decades--show more graphically than anything else that almost inconceivable increase of growth, and which is con stantly being maintained. And during those twenty-four years the Acme White Lead and Color Works has "earned itself"--has actually made every dollar of its capital, and conse quently has laid a foundation for itself which neither panic nor financial stress in the country' at large can. shake. And this capitalization today is $1,250,000--a million and a quarter dol lars actually earned! From the little "one barrel" factory of twenty-four years ago, with its one, small rented building, the company's magnificent plant in Detroit now covers fourteen acres. Each year has seen the enter prise reaching out, growing larger and larger and more powerful, until it now -T..--' --L'urpr" 0007-S WP-047507 0007-SWP-000115714 I 0007-SWP-047508 0007-SWP-000115715 ?'enAera*rte n Xr zr 0007-SWP-0475W 0007-SWP-000115716 has a second large factory in Boston, prosperous and growing branches and distributing depots in Chicago, St. Louis, Nashville, San Francisco, and Spokane, and a dozen thoroughly well established stores in other cities. The business of the company now keeps over 100 traveling salesmen con stantly on the road, and a. higher proof of the soundness of the institution, and the demand for its products, could not be given than in the fact that during the years of great financial depression from 1803 to 1896, when corporations were cither failing or calling in their traveling men, the Acme people added to their traveling forces. And in the last year of that panic, so great had grown the business, a new plant was built on the present site, which has since been quad rupled in size. 0007-SWP-047510 0007-SWP-000115717 In an address some time ago, President Roosevelt said, "What is it that makes a business stable, reliable, and a boon to the nation? It is honesty--honesty, and Judgment, and the determination to Jo the best and make the best that is possible." Those are the elements which have played vital parts in the making of the Acme White Lead and Color Works--the greatest institution of its kind in the world. Wherever the "Acme Quality" trade-mark is seen its merit is known. Those principles, "honesty, judgment, and the determina tion to do the best and make the best" have given that trade-mark a franchise value that is very great. It has been advertised to the ends of the earth. There is not a hamlet or a town in the United States where it is not familiar. It has been lived up to by the men who made it, and it is being "lived up to" 0007-SWP-047511 t* I o **' *: -- 7 ,* a-*i^r">- . 0007-SWP-047512 0007-SWP-000115719 0007-SWP-047513 0007-SWP-000115720 0007-SWP-047S14 ,_A T 0007-SWP-000115721 now, in ways that would astonish those unacquainted with this institution. In its scientific laboratories | the best chemists that money can secure are constantly at work, each day striving to improve present products, searching for new things, and testing and proving the materials that come into and go out from the factory, that those priceless words, "Acme Quality" may still ring > true wherever they are heard. ] In the business management, in the traveling service, in every department of the vast institution, this same striving--striving for the honest and the best--are the working laws. Once each year, to this i end, a week's "congress" of salesmen and heads of departments is held in Detroit. Thus the "whole family" comes together to make plans, exchange ideas, and in unison formulate those policies T 0007-S WP-047515 0007-SWP-000115722 r \ ' Lt and campaigns which work to the wel fare of the Acme Quality products. As yet, as has been said, the paint business of the country has been but skimmed over the surface. Ten years '' from now, although the population of the country will have increased prob ably not more than ten per cent, in that time, there will, at the present rate of Increase, be four times the quantity of paint used in the United States as now. 1 People arc awakening, almost en masse, to the uses and utility of paints and varnishes; they are coming to be rec ognized as among the greatest benefits of humanity; and this, together with the fact that according to the most careful estimates the country is suffer ing a loss of $35,000,000 a year by the non-use ofpaint, and that a new know ledge of paint is being disseminated more and more, means that during the .. -- ' Mfl7-SWP-0475j,5 0007-SWP-000115723  0, EmployrV Mtmc and Rest Room t 1 I 1 I T~^ 0007-SWP-047517 0007-SWP-000115724 % i 'U` 0007-SWP-047518 0007-SWP'-000115725 next decade the paint industry has before it an era of absolute and unpre cedented prosperity. A How the Acme White Lead and f, TM Color works plans to lead the world in the manufacture of paints and varnishes during these years may best be seen by those who take a trip through the great Detroit plant. Before going into the | details of manufacture, one will first see I that in this vast institution there arc splendid human and mechanical mech1 anisms at work for the making of every ; conceivable product that enters into the i paint business. There is not a field in I which the "Acme Quality" banners are not already floating triumphantly, there is not a field, from the making of white lead to that of kalsomine, in which they are not recognized from coast to coast as the signs of that "honesty, judgment, and determination to do the best and 0007-SWP-047519 0007-SWP-000115726 I1 make the best," which our President has said form the foundation of ail solid business. A bird's-eye view of the in stitution would show one of the world's greatest factories for the making of ' mixed paints and enamels; a varnish factory that has no rival; a new white lead corroding plant, where white lead is made by the `mild" process--which process is the most scientific known to paint science; and this same view would show the most up-to-date kalsomine plant in the world. These are the "working ends"--the actual makers of the Acme Quality pro- ducts. Each is complete in itself, each is an industry that alone is a profitable corporation business, yet all have been brought together in one family, under one trade mark banner, and this union is one of the strongest assurances of the solidity and profit-making powers of the * 0007-SWp.047521) 0007-SWP-000115727 Aisle i the Dry Color Department Some Oil Color Mills * 0007-S WP-047521 0007-SWP-000115728 "ft The Kalwmim* Building CSMKm J 1 0007-SWP-0475Z2 0007-SWP-00011 r Industry. This plant, for instance, not only supplies a large part of the world [with the best white lead that science lean make, but it also supplies its own iwhite lead for its huge output of pre pared paints. Each "working end"-- leach individual factory of this splendid mechanism, not only pays dividends on its own account, but assists some other factory, or member of the mechanism. In other words, each branch supplies to 4 0007-S WP-Q47523 0007-SWP-000115730 department of tixe institution. The skilled chemists in this department are not only constantly seeking for new and better things. All classes of material that go into the "working ends" are carefully analyzed by them. In the making of no product will a secondgrade material pass. And when a finished "Acme Quality" product is ready to leave a certain factory it must go under their inspection before being turned out upon the market. The ma terials were good. Was the finished product properly made? Is there a flaw in it? Was it properly combined, or did a moment's carelessness deteriorate a batch of varnish? In fact, is it perfect? If it is not it never leaves the works. For this reason the trade-mark, "Acme Quality," has won for itself a value that many fortunes could not buy. 0007-SWP-047524 0007-SWP-000115731 * 0007-SWP-047525 0007-SWP-000115732 J I 0007-SWP-047526 0007-SWP-000115733 And this same scientific care is shown in every detail of the works. In the paint-making departments, where scores of mills are constantly at work, the men in command watch with cease less vigilance; in the varnish rooms, among the great tanks and beside the huge kettles, the workers have con stantly in mind the mark they must live up to. Perfection--Perfection--Perfec tion -- that is the slogan from the manager's office to the men who fill the cans; it is the watchword of the dry color department, where all the colors of the rainbow greet the eyes; it is the keynote to success for the trained makers of kalsomine, for the scientific ally trained men in the white lead works, for all workers--from those in Boston who are unloading chalk stone from ships and making it into usable shape for the whiting of kalsomine and o f i i 0007-S WP-047527 0007-SWP-000115734 putty, to the army of loyal, ambitious workers traveling in every state in the Union. It is the word--the spirit--that I has made Acme Quality products as near perfection as human hands can make them, and that has built up the greatest business of its kind in the world today. And one might go on like this through pages, telling of the why and the wherefore of the success of "Acme Quality.'' There might be given pen pictures of features adopted for f fI the comfort and convenience of em ployes; of the provision made for \ serving hot tea or coffee at the noon hour in all departments every day; of the pleasant dining-room for the clerks and heads of departments; of the cir culating library; of the smoking room, where an "after dinner" cigar or pipe may be enjoyed; of the music-room equipped with piano. These are all j 0007-SWP-047528 0007-SWP-000115735 indications that the management have thought of their employes in a manner that they themselves would like to be considered, and accounts for the good ^ will and loyalty which prevail, and which has undoubtedly counted much in the establishment of a business neces sitating the largest paint and varnish plant in the world. 0007-SWP-047529 0007-SWP-047530 0007-SWP-000115737