Know-Nothing Brown

A shoe is a commodity. So is a motion picture, a vaudeville act, a radio program. A man who has sold shoes should be able to sell cinemas, acts, broadcastings. So thinks the recently formed Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corp. (TIME, Oct. 15), so thinks Hiram Staunton Brown, its new president.

Mr. Brown has resigned from the presidency of U. S. Leather Co. to accept his new position. Says he: "I am going to get right after this thing. ... As I see it, selling entertainment, if you have the goods as the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corp.

has, is just the same as selling anything else." Mr. Brown's selection occasioned some comment in amusement circles, in as much as Mr. Brown has had no experi ence in amusement enterprises. But if he now knows nothing about amusements, he also knew nothing about leather when he became the U. S. Leather Co. head in 1923. The modern executive is not in frequently superior to and aloof from a detailed knowledge of his industry's routine.

A young man as executives are considered (he is 46) Mr. Brown began his commercial career as an office boy with the New York Herald. In this capacity he earned $5 a week. Making the not un common progression from newspaper to secretarial work, he became secretary t6 Edward Marshall, the Herald's foreign correspondent. He was also secretary to William Dinwiddie, Herald war correspondent during the Spanish-American war. After a period of reporting, for the Washington Times, Mr. Brown got into organization work with public utilities.

During the War he was chief of the air service finance division.

As an amusement purveyor, Mr. Brown will have as assets on hand the Keith-Albee theatre circuit, the F. B. O. Produc tion Co.'s pictures, and the Radio Corpo ration's talking movie, the Photophone.

He hopes to develop new theatrical stars who, developed on the Keith-Albee stages, will be featured on radio programs of the National Broadcasting Co.* Concerning the future of the talking cinema, Mr.

Brown would make no prediction, saying his knowledge of the subject was no greater than that of the ordinary cinema patron.

* National Broadcasting Co. is controlled by Radio Corp. of America. Radio Corp. of America is associated with Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corp.