Albert Russel Erskine: The President the Receivership Killed

Albert Russel Erskine: The President the Receivership Killed

The fortune, inverted: Erskine was not a founder but the hired president — treasurer from 1911, president from 1915 to 1933 — and his entry in a wealth section is the size of his ruin, which the record documents as carefully as any fortune here. Through the late 1920s he paid dividends out of capital: $7,800,000 in 1930, five times that year's actual net profits, and $3,500,000 in 1931, while working capital fell from $26,000,000 in 1926 to $3,500,000 in 1932 and the company came to owe its banks $6,000,000 (the figures as published in Maurice D. Hendry's company history). The corporation entered receivership on 18 March 1933 and Erskine was forced out. He was left, by Hendry's account, $350,000 in personal debt, his Studebaker stock all but worthless, suffering from heart trouble and diabetes; he shot himself at his South Bend home — the published record divides between 30 June and 1 July 1933, and both dates are carried in the sources of the Studebaker section — and one account in Hendry adds that the insurance companies paid his debts and provided for his dependents, a statement its own carrier qualifies with "according to one account." No probate valuation of Erskine's estate appears in the sources consulted. Beyond Erskine, George Studebaker's bankruptcy (previous entry), and Vincent Bendix (following entry), no other South Bend personal fortune destroyed in the Depression carries a published loss figure in the sources consulted; the city's banks met the crisis by consolidation, not by sized personal wipeouts.

Sources:

1. Maurice D. Hendry, Studebaker: One Can Do a Lot of Remembering at South Bend — the dividends of $7,800,000 (1930) and $3,500,000 (1931), working capital $26,000,000 (1926) to $3,500,000 (1932), the $6,000,000 owed banks, Erskine's $350,000 of personal debt.
2. The Henry Ford, "Remembering Studebaker's Bankruptcy, March 18, 1933" — the receivership date and Erskine's ouster.
3. South Bend Tribune, 2 July 1933 — the death as reported; the 30 June / 1 July division of dates stands across the contemporary and later accounts.