A very present instance of this same quality, reflected this time in the recuperative power of a mill, is contained in a prediction made by the gentleman who knows most about the Graniteville Mill, that the stock which then, at reorganization, sold for $60 the share will in a year, if all goes well, sell at par.[446]
It has been said that the stock of the Rock Hill Cotton Factory could not be bought, and that the stock of several mills sold for $300 per share. That of the Tucapau Mills, in South Carolina, is not to be had today, or it can be had only at 3 or 5 for one. This is by some regarded as the most successful mill in the State.
It would seem that absolutely no stock of the Salisbury Mills is on the market. Recently an energetic young man anxious to buy stock of the mill for principals, went to the treasurer of the company and to shareholders individually, without success. The treasurer said that by looking long enough, and waiting for his chance, he might induce some stockholder to sell at 200.[447] This comparatively low figure in his prognostication is perhaps accounted for by the conservative character of the company from the start, and the uniformly satisfactory, though not brilliant dividends of the enterprise, together with the fact, maybe most potent of all, that sixty of the one hundred and five shareholders in the Salisbury Mills are ladies, the majority of whom have received their holdings through inheritance.[448]
The Majestic Mill, Gaston County, North Carolina, which in 1916 after nine months' operation declared a dividend of 10 per cent., sold three shares of stock which in some way had not been marketed, at 150 each.[449]
In mentioning the contrast between the market price at this time of the stock of mills in various localities. Thought was particularly of the facts as to the Augusta mills' securities and those of the plants in and about Gastonia. The latter are as optimistic as the former are the reverse. Mills in Gastonia making in 1916 from 75 to 100 per cent. net profits, are represented by stock selling at figures ranging from $150 to $250 the share.[450]
VITA
Broadus Mitchell was born at Georgetown, Kentucky, December 27, 1892; he attended a primary school in Richmond, Virginia, and then, for four years until 1908, Richmond Academy; for one session, 1908-1909, attended the Hope Street High School, Providence, Rhode Island; in 1909 entered the University of South Carolina; in the summer of 1911 was a member of the reportorial staff of The Daily Record, Columbia, South Carolina; graduated from the University of South Carolina with A.B. degree in 1913; from June, 1913, until October, 1914, was a member of the reportorial staff of the Richmond Evening Journal; entered The Johns Hopkins University in 1914; was a Hopkins Scholar during this and the succeeding session; was Fellow in Political Economy, 1916-1917; in July, 1917, became special staff writer The New Leader, Richmond, Virginia, and was given furlough from this position to return to the University in the fall of 1917; Fellow by Courtesy and instructor in Courses in Business Economics, 1917-1918.