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.
[5] Later that year, Stone was summoned to testify before the Nye Committee to address allegations that Colt (among many other companies also under investigation) had improperly campaigned for America to enter World War I, 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.
[6] 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.