The following is an experience which came to me in my capacity as an industrial engineer. In 1932, when the depression was being felt, the owner of a company requested my services in an endeavor to save his business from liquidation by his creditors. I accepted this task with the proviso that this business would be assigned to me and that within six months I would turn it back to the owner.
The condition I walked into was very far from being a happy one from a material standpoint. The morning I arrived I found the creditors assembled for the purpose of forming a creditors' committee in order to liquidate the business to satisfy their debts, and confusion was rampant. One by one the excited creditors were invited into my office and informed that the premise on which I was basing my conclusions was that their liabilities would be turned into assets.
As the days and weeks went on, we gradually began paying off our old debts. However, one Friday we found ourselves in the position of not having available cash on hand or in the bank to meet the week-end payroll or the payments due our creditors. I had requested the accountants to prepare an experience record of the past few years, showing what could be expected for that time of the year in the way of receipts and disbursements. That evening I stayed in my office until quite late, studying this statement from every angle.
