Forbes Asia — May 2017

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As Forbes’ September 2017 centennial approaches,

we’re unearthing our favorite covers.

AMAZING ADS

Truck Tech

Chevy’s new 1948

pickup came with

a four-speed

transmission and

a foot-operated

parking brake. A

“fresh air heating”

system was offered

as an option, too.

FAST-FORWARD

Department of Desertion

1948: Department stores are a $10 billion-in-sales

industry (roughly $100 billion today). Even little chains,

such as Bright’s in rural eastern Pennsylvania, flourish.

2017: The last Bright’s closed more than two decades

ago, a few years before e-commerce started to take off.

Web shopping now generates $295 billion in annual

revenue, almost double the amount of department-

store sales, and big chains such as Sears and Macy’s

are cutting jobs and shuttering stores.

THE EDITOR’S DESK

Marshalling Assistance

B.C. Forbes worried that the Marshall

Plan would degenerate into a vast

money pit, and he urged its namesake,

General George Marshall, to delegate

its implementation to an army of

businessmen: “Bureaucrats are totally

unfit to supervise wisely the spending

of billions of dollars.”

FORGOTTEN FIGURE

Pipe Dreamer

President Truman had bestowed the federal government’s

newly created Certificate of Merit on W. Alton Jones,

the head of what’s now Citgo; Jones had constructed

two crucial oil pipelines in the U.S. after German U-boats

imperiled shipping lanes across the Atlantic Ocean.

March 1, 1948:

A Fortunate Time

AT AGE 49, Henry Luce commanded a

media empire that reached some 8 million

people. He had founded it 25 years earlier

when he published the first issue of Time

and had since expanded it to include Life,

Fortune and Architectural Forum. Time alone

sold more than 1.5 million copies a week, and

the combined company, Time Inc., brought

in $8 million in annual profit (roughly

$80 million today).

Luce, though, had detractors, who variously

labeled him a “Wall Street mouthpiece” and an

imperialist. While Forbes described his success

as “Lively, Timely and Lavishly Fortunate,” we

couldn’t resist one shot at our rival: “Although it

has been charged that many people buy Fortune

for living room décor, it’s safe to assume that

each copy is read in part by several people.”

FORBES ASIA

FORBES @ 100

BY ABRAM BROWN

66 | FORBES ASIA MAY 2017