Insull, Jr.

At Chicago last week, directors of the Midland Utilities Co. elected Samuel Insull Jr. their president over public utility companies which serve electricity, gas or transportation to 194 communities of Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. He accepted the appointment with the grace of his mother, onetime Actress Margaret A. Bird, and with the complacent assurance of his father, Electricity Monger Samuel Insull.

Samuel Insull Jr.--short, stocky, quick-spoken--has never had the least doubt of his destiny. Always, yet without obnoxious parade, he has carried himself as the proper successor of a potent sire. There was no starting at the "bottom of the ladder" for him. Graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School, he studied public utility management problems in Europe and the U. S. under his father's skilled guidance. He has functioned as vice president and assistant to the president (his father) of the com pany he now heads. Now as president--with his training, with his 26 years, with the steadiness of some months' married life--there is little possibility of his erring. For Samuel Insull, father, still guides, is chairman of the board of directors of the Midland Utilities Co.