Tycoons

(See front cover)

Two bombs, exploding last week in either of two carefully selected places, within 12 hours, would have caused billions of dollars of consternation. For in the McMillin Academic Theatre of Columbia University, and in the Hotel Astor, Manhattan, were gathered on the same day the most distinguished, most potent businessmen of the U. S. Urged by Columbia University and by the Institute of American Meat Packers, they had come to attend 1) a Conference of Major Industries, and 2) a dinner to Alfred Moritz Mond, Lord Melchett, most famed of living British industrialists.

Both the conference and the dinner were sponsored by educators and meatpackers. Pressing invitations went to prospective speakers, prospective guests. Looking down the tables in the Hotel Astors ballroom, Lord Melchett saw many a familiar face.

Easily classified were the guests of the educators and the butchers. Henry Ford was first of cheap motorcar makers; Thomas Alva Edison was first to perfect the phonograph, the incandescent lamp and many another U. S. industrial staple. In photography, none outranks Rochester's music-loving George Eastman. Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis is 78, is dean of newspaper and magazine publishers. How long is their service to science and industry is indicated by the average of their ages--74. Younger are the two historic exponents of commercial aviation, youngest of great industries. Orville Wright, at 57, is seven years the senior of Glenn Hammond Curtiss. Charles Michael Schwab (Bethlehem Steel Co.) and Julius Rosenwald (Sears Roebuck & Co.) are 66. Tiremaker Harvey Samuel Firestone is 60.

Classifying the group, rough similarities are immediately apparent with American enterprise. All are, or have been, potent factors in the industrial development of the U. S. With the exception of Aviators Wright & Curtiss, all are 60 or over. With the exception of Steelman Schwab, who went to St. Francis College, and Tireman Firestone, who went to business college, none of the group progressed beyond a public high school education. Most of the eight have been powers in their particular fields, have now forged beyond their fields into larger industrial problems. The Ford plant in Dearborn is held the world's most exhaustive and interesting experiment in mechanistic production. Establishing a plantation in Liberia, Tiremaker Firestone attempts to readjust the world's rubber economics. As head of Sears Roebuck & Co., Julius Rosenwald directs a merchandising policy which threatens to bring many a U. S. manufacturer to terms.

Educators and meatpackers, choosing and selecting their guests, might have hailed them as apparitors, as prodromi, outriders, bellwethers, bellmares, avant-couriers, foreloopers. Actually they acclaimed them as Pioneers of U. S. industry.

Yet another group of men remained to be invited to the Conference of Major Industries. Meat-packers announced a list of seven speakers who should interpret, jointly and severally, "The Current Situation." Impressive were names, titles, themes, as follows: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President, American Construction Council (Building and Construction); Harold Higgins Franklin Swift, Swift & Co. (Meat-packing); Myron Charles Taylor, Chairman Finance Committee, U. S. Steel Corp. (Iron and Steel); Charles Franklin Kettering, President, General Motors Research Corp. (Automobiles); Walter Sherman Gifford, President A. T. & T. (Communication); Frank Brett Noyes, President, The Associated Press (Printing and Publishing); Charles Edwin Mitchell, President, National City Bank (Finance).

Inquisitive students made curious comparisons, last week, between pioneers and speakers. They noted: 1) that only one speaker, Publisher Noyes, is over 60, while the average age of the others is 48; 2) that only one speaker, Publisher Noyes, failed to attend a prominent and popular university; and 3) that each and every speaker is an active executive.

Eager for classification, students sought a word which might fit such potent industrialists. They shelved master, titan, king, as painfully obvious. They considered ponderous recondite synonyms for potentate, but at length rejected hospodar, beglerbeg and three-tailed bashaw as offensively obscure. They hit happily on the brief but sonorous Tycoon.

Quickly, they admitted Pioneers Ford, Schwab, Rosenwald, Eastman, Firestone and Speakers Swift, Taylor, Gifford, Mitchell and many another U. S. businessman to tycoonship. And with enthusiasm they claimed Honor Guest Lord Melchett as Foremost and Mightiest British Tycoon.

Tycoon Melchett rose to speak of Britain's industry, Britain's labor problems, Britain's new urge toward amalgamation.

His was an audience of peers, 300 U. S. industrialists directing corporations whose assets totaled tens of billions of dollars, whose balance sheets have been the index of U. S. prosperity. A tycoon addressed tycoons.