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BY ABRAM BROWNAUGUST 2017 FORBES ASIA | 69TODD BANNOR/ALAMY; MOVIESTORE COLLECTION/ALAMY; EVERETT COLLECTION/NEWSCOM; MOVIESTORE COLLECTION/ALAMY; EVERETT COLLECTION/NEWSCOMAs Forbes’ September 2017 centennial approaches,
we’re unearthing our favorite covers.NUMBERS GAME
To Catch a Thief
“There seems to be a blind spot in
the intelligence of every embezzler,
no matter how expert he may be,”
accountant George H. Kingsley
told Forbes. He recounted stories
of apprehended embezzlers, such
as the $30-a-week clerk for an
automobile company who had
tried to buy a $3,500 roadster.
(That’s akin to earning $490 a week
today while eyeing a $57,000 car.)
Kingsley advised businesses to
modernize their accounting systems,
implement surprise audits—and
carefully examine the motives of
any employees who seem overly
eager to “help” the auditors.SIGN OF THE TIMES
Tuned Into the Future
Television might still have been in a “crude,
elementary stage,” but Forbes’ crystal ball
sagely predicted business videoconferencing,
televised sermons, QVC-like shopping channels
and the continued success of CBS and NBC.July 15, 1931:
Driving Force
AMAZING AD
Cola Power
Advances in refrigeration had enabled
Coca-Cola to increase distribution.
The company had introduced its iconic
six-pack of bottles eight years earlier.WALTER P. CHRYSLER faced a crisis: Nineteen
thirty-one was the worst year for business since
the invention of the automobile.
Chrysler responded by doubling down on a
burgeoning area of his empire: the lower-priced
Plymouth line he had introduced three years
earlier. Chrysler advertisements of the time
heralded the new 1931 Plymouth as “floating
power” with “the smoothness of an eight
[cylinder]... the economy of a four.” A four-
door, three-window sedan started at $635,
or roughly $10,300 in today’s dollars.
Chrysler instructed his company to embark
on a new training program for dealers to ensure
they understood the vehicle—and could sell it
well. The regimen included an educational film
that showed the Plymouth traversing the “worst
roads in the United States,” in Death Valley, where
the temperature regularly tops 130 degrees.