Two Morrows

Two weeks ago United Cigar Co, and Tobacco Products Corp. changed hands (TIME, Aug. 26). The hands into which they passed were those of George Kenan Morrow and his brother Frederick. Since the Morrows were known to be interested in a number of food products, Wall Street began to talk of a new food products combination, perhaps rivaling the recent Morgan merger (Standard Brands). Last week, confirming that guess, four companies -- Toddy Corp. (chocolate malted milk), Edward H. Jacob (canned mushrooms), Kitchen Bouquet (liquid flavoring extracts), Fould Milling (macaroni) -- united in Grocery Store Products Inc., and the name of George Kenan Morrow again figured prominently on the board of directors.

More than one quidnunc murmured: "Easy guess where the two Morrows are going, but where did they come from?" The answer was : they came from Canada, from a farm not far from Toronto. The history of Brother Frederick is a good deal the shorter of the two. He is 13 years the younger. He is only 42, tall, dark, clean-shaven. His business career has been mainly in Canada although more than once he has joined forces with his brother on both sides of the border. He is a director of the Bank of Toronto and in a chain of Canadian enterprises allied with his brother's interests.

Brother George, after he left St. Michael's College in Toronto, worked for Swift & Co. in Chicago, then for Quaker Oats. After a few years he set up as a broker (Morrow & Co.) in the New York Produce and Sugar Exchanges. He took a hand in Gold Dust Corp. of which he is now chairman. He was invited to reorganize American Cotton Oil Co. and did so with such effect that in about five years the value of the company's stock was multi plied 15 times. That was only the begin ning of a career of reorganizations and purchases. Today George K. Morrow. 55, keen-eyed, grey, sturdy, has a home on Long Island, golfs week-endly at the Pomonok Country Club (Flushing), owns the Mono, yacht of the late Marcus Loew.

Together the Brothers Morrow have bought the 2-in-1 Polish Co. in Canada (now 2-in-1 Shinola Bixby Corp., subsidiary of Gold Dust), Christie Brown Co. ( Canadian cracker makers), Consolidated Bakeries (also Canadian), American Linseed Co.. Standard Milling Co. They had to fight for control of the last two, but as Elder Brother George remarked last week: "We are like Tunney. We have never been beaten."

With that motto the Morrow Brothers --cigar stores, washing powder, soap, shoe polish, honey, macaroni, mayonnaise, peanut butter, margarine, pickles, flour, meat, sugar--may be added to the roster of famed self-made business brothers: the two Brothers Behn (Col. Sosthenes and Hernand) masters of I. T. & T.; the two Brothers Giannini (Amadeo Peter and Attilio H.) bankers; the two Brothers Rentschler (Frederick B. and Gordon Sohn) in aviation and aviation financing; the three brothers Starrett (Paul, William Aiken, Ralph) and the two Brothers Chanin (Irwin S. and Henry I.), builders all; the two Brothers Van Sweringen (Mantis James and Oris Paxton). railroaders; the seven Brothers Fisher (Charles T., Fred J., Lawrence P., Edward P., William A., Albert J., Howard), whose bodies are famous; the three Brothers Warner (Harry, Albert, Jack--the fourth. Sam, died in 1927), cinemen.