Eureka

Back in 1909, one Fred Wardell became a "one-horse distributor" of electric vacuum cleaners. While he himself canvassed, his sole employee--a girl stenographer--ran his entire office. After four years of this, he proceeded to buy out the manufacturing end of the business, and acquired five men to help him run it. During the dark days of 1920, these five stuck to Wardell and his vacuum cleaners. Today, the Eureka Vacuum Cleaner Co., Detroit, is the largest manufacturing concern of its type in the world, with 250,000 shares of stock outstanding and no bonds or preferred ahead of it. The whole business has been built out of its extraordinary earnings. Five years ago, Wardell's five henchmen invested among them a meagre sum in the business. On May 5 last, the Company expanded its capital structure and distributed some of its surplus, in the course of which the five were handed cash to the extent of $4,000,000 and securities worth $8,000,000--the return on their original investment. Most of the five put practically nothing into the business; in 1920, they paid for their stock with notes, paid off the notes with subsequent dividends. It is said in Detroit that Wardell's sudden rise to wealth has been more rapid even than that of the early motor kings. Mr. Wardell himself claims distinction not only for having rung doorbells in every state in the union, but also for having rung more of them than any other human being.