Samuel M. Stone (February 19, 1869 – December 9, 1959) was a President of

Colt's Manufacturing Company Colt's Manufacturing Company, LLC (CMC, formerly Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company) is an American firearms manufacturer, founded in 1855 by Samuel Colt that has become a subsidiary of Czech holding company Colt CZ Group. It is th ...

who saw the company through the build-up to World War I and the end of World War II.

Early life

Stone was born in

Urbana, Ohio Urbana is a city in Champaign County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is located about northeast of Dayton, Ohio, Dayton and west of Columbus, Ohio, Columbus. The population was 11,115 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. ...

in 1869 where he attended public schools. In 1890 he left Ohio for St. Louis to work as a buyer for

Simmons Hardware Company The Simmons Hardware Company was a hardware manufacturer based in St. Louis with locations in six states. Staff The founder of the company was Edward C. Simmons, who started the company in 1874 and retired in 1898. The founder's son, George W ...

. He worked at Simmons for 15 years, eventually leaving to accept a position at Colt Firearms.

Colt's

Samuel M. Stone started with

in 1905 as a salesman. He was elected to company vice-president in 1916, and eventually President of Colt's from 1921 to 1944. Anticipating a military draw-down following

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, Stone and company president

William C. Skinner William C. Skinner (January 26, 1855 – March 8, 1922) was born in Malone, New York. Skinner attended Albany Law School in Albany, New York. He clerked for the New York Legislature and railroad in Albany before moving to Hartford, Connecticut, to ...

implemented a diversification program at Colt's Manufacturing similar to that done at the close of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. Skinner and Stone acquired contracts for business machines, calculators, dishwashers, motorcycles, and automobiles; all marketed under a name other than Colt. Other measures included cutting the work week, reducing salaries, and keeping more employees on the payroll than they needed, all of which kept the company in business. Striking workers from the plant firebombed Stone's house in an act of

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

in 1934. Later that year, Stone was summoned to testify before the

Nye Committee The Nye Committee, officially known as the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry, was a United States Senate committee (April 12, 1934 – February 24, 1936), chaired by U.S. Senator Gerald Nye (R-ND). The committee investi ...

to address allegations that Colt (among many other companies also under investigation) had improperly campaigned for America to enter

, in order to increase arms sales to the U.S. government. Company records orived that this was incorrect, disclosing that Stone (and Colt as a whole) had been concentrating on selling pistols to markets in Latin America and Asia instead. In 1944 Colt faced labor and cash flow problems once again, as the demands of wartime production had required their workforce to surge dramatically, from 1100 workers in 1936, to a peak of over 13,000. The Federal Government intervened to ensure war materiel production was not interrupted, and had Stone step down as president.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stone, Samuel M. 1869 births 1959 deaths Colt's Manufacturing Company