Happy Foley

Of all U. S. judges who occupy themselves with what dead people leave behind, most famed is the Surrogate of New York County, James A. Foley. Last week this good & able Tammany man wound up the toughest job in his long career.

Ella Virginia von Echtzel Wendel was hardly in her grave before heirs far from apparent began to clamor for a slice of the fortune which old John Gottlieb Wendel had founded in the fur trade and then grounded in Manhattan. Whole European villages claimed Wendel blood. From Brooklyn came a dull-witted housepainter who, as the self-styled son of the last male Wendel, laid siege to the whole estate, was sentenced to jail for conspiracy. One by one Surrogate Foley eliminated 2.,294 claims. After eleven months of spectacular hearings four fifth-degree relatives settled for $2,125,000. All suits to break the will were dropped. Last week $40,000,000 was the estimate of the estate's value. If that estimate is correct, then $7,000,000 ( 17% 1/2 ) will go to each of the following:

Drew University, Madison, N. J.

Nanking Theological Seminary

New York Society for Ruptured & Crippled

Manhattan's Flower Hospital

St. Christopher's Home for Children, Dobbs Ferry, N. Y.

Surrogate Foley rubbed his hands over the job: ''It demonstrates that the law's delay may be avoided even in cases involving millions of dollars with serious and complicated questions of law. It would not have been possible to have accomplished this result . . . without the loyal co operation ... of the attorneys on both sides."

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