Charlie's Oscar

In 1933 wee Willie Woodin packed up his guitar and went to Washington to become Secretary of the Treasury of a brand New Deal. On leaving he turned over the presidency of his American Car & Foundry Co. (second largest U. S. railroad car maker) to a little white-haired lawyer, Charles J. Hardy, who had been the company's General Counsel. Charlie Hardy has been head of American Car & Foundry ever since.

About the same time that twinkle-eyed Mr. Woodin left, Senor Oscar Benjamin Cintas, a director of the company and head of its Latin American subsidiaries, also went to the capital to take an official job: Cuban Ambassador to the U. S. Sometimes Charlie Hardy went down to see his friend Oscar and enjoyed the excellent Bacardi cocktails at the Cuban Embassy. After almost a year in Washington Oscar gave up his embassy and returned to the Latin American companies.

At one end of the directors' table in the big board room of Jersey City's First National Bank one day last week sat handsome, strapping Oscar Cintas, a long Cuban cigarette between his slim fingers, a sleekly rolled umbrella between his well-tailored knees. Across the table, and nervous under Oscar Cintas' blazing black eyes, sat gnome-like Charlie Hardy. Jampacked in the room were some 125 A. C. F. stockholders, come to the annual meeting to see Hardy and Cintas, no longer friends, have it out.

They had got along fine until last sum mer when Oscar Cintas finally blew up over what he regarded as a failure by Car & Foundry to go after Latin American business. He resigned as director and president of the company's Argentine, Brazilian and Cuban equipment subsidiaries. Last month, three weeks before A. C. F. reported a $1,662,692 deficit for the fiscal year, Oscar Cintas, from his ritzy suite in Manhattan's Ritz-Carlton, sent a bitter letter to stockholders charging that Car & Foundry's directors were on record for only minuscule blocks of stock, while he, Oscar Cintas, was the largest individual stockholder in the company.

Back cracked rasp-voiced Charlie Hardy, saying that Senor Cintas was a disgruntled, discharged employe dealing in "misstatements and half statements." Back cracked Oscar Cintas with the charge that the Hardy law firm (Hardy, Stancliffe & Hardy) was making a good thing out of Car & Foundry. (The company paid the firm $12,825 in legal fees for the last fiscal year.)

In the Jersey City board room last week the play reached its climax before the curtain had well risen. At the first motion (to dispense with the reading of the minutes) Mr. Hardy sent his tellers among the stockholders to collect ballots on the motion. When all were in, Charlie Hardy, without so much as a glance at Oscar Cintas, rasped that the chair represented a majority of the stock, announced the minutes would not be read.

During the next three hours minority stockholders (including Manhattan Ribbon Manufacturer Arthur C. Flatto, recent No. 1 stockholding critic of Western Union) aired their views, heckled the management, demanded minority representation, applauded, jeered. When the uproar was over, tough Charlie Hardy announced the results of the annual election: the management slate had been reelected. Extent of its support: more than 60% of the 589,150 eligible shares. Oscar Cintas picked up his umbrella and walked out with Latin disdain.

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