Albert Russel Erskine — the chief executive the Depression killed

president, July 1915 – March 1933

Not a founder: Albert Russel Erskine founded nothing in South Bend. He is in this section because no chief executive who merely ran a South Bend house ever ran one further, or ended worse. He succeeded Fred Fish as president of Studebaker in July 1915 and ran the company as a growth enterprise for eighteen years: he consolidated the Detroit operations into South Bend, built the great South Bend plant of the 1920s, launched the small car that bore his own name — the Erskine Six, introduced in Paris in 1926 — and took the chairmanship of Pierce-Arrow when Studebaker bought control of the Buffalo luxury maker in August 1928. He also wrote the company's official history, the History of the Studebaker Corporation of 1918, dedicated to John M. Studebaker — the record on which much of this section's Studebaker line rests, and itself the work of the man it would later judge.

The fall: Erskine kept faith that prosperity was returning and held the dividend: through the 1920s the company paid out as much as 90 percent of earnings, and huge dividends were declared in 1930 and 1931 while the market collapsed, draining the company's cash. He also acquired 95 percent of the White Motor Company's stock, at an inflated price and in cash. Wage cuts and layoffs followed the crash, and the Rockne, on which the recovery plan rested, could not sell in a market buying almost nothing. By 1933 the banks were owed $6 million, though current assets exceeded the figure — the company was not balance-sheet bankrupt but out of cash and credit in the month of the national banking crisis. On 18 March 1933 Studebaker entered receivership, and Erskine was pushed out of the presidency. On 1 July 1933 he shot himself — the Studebaker section's date; some published accounts give 30 June, and both stand. He is the only president of a major American automobile company to die by his own hand in the Depression. His personal ruin is the Wealth section's.

Sources:

1. Studebaker — "Consolidation at South Bend: the works in the 1920s" and "Receivership: March 1933 to March 1935" (the July 1915 succession, the Erskine Six of 1926, the dividend policy and the White Motor purchase, the $6 million owed, the 18 March 1933 receivership, the death of 1 July 1933).
2. Notable People — "The Studebakers" (Erskine's Pierce-Arrow chairmanship of August 1928; the only president of a major American automobile company to die by his own hand in the Depression).
3. Great Fortunes — "Erskine" (Part Two) and its conflicts list (the death dated 30 June vs 1 July 1933 across the published accounts).