"Football of Wall St."

William Crapo Durant, creator of General Motors Corp. and lately a profiting speculator in Wall Street, last week spent $21,000 to advertise in 48 newspapers in 29 cities, and thus gain presumably 8,800,000 readers of the new leaf he is turning industrially as well as financially. At 65 years of age he intends to duplicate General Motors --by means of Consolidated Motors Inc., which he has just had incorporated in Delaware. And "exactly as the Buick in 1908 was used as the nucleus and the keystone of the great General Motors," he intends to use the new Star Six as the sill timber of his new structure. For supports, braces and superstructures to this he can furnish other companies that he controls--Durant Motors Inc. (makers of Star and Durant motor cars), American Plate Glass Co., Motors Parts Corp., New Process Gear Co., Warner Corp., Locomobile Co. of America (Locomobiles), Adams Axle Co., Mason Motor Truck Co.

Despite his good intentions Mr. Durant found newspapers skeptical. Stated the New York Times: "William C. Durant's preliminary announcement of his plans for re-entering the automobile industry aroused only a small amount of interest in the financial district, because the announcement did not specify what Mr. Durant expected to do." And the New York Post: "The 'startling announcement' which W. C. Durant, head of Durant Motors Inc., promised Wall Street has been made, but Wall Street . . . failed to register any unusual excitement."

Even Mr. Durant's explanation of why he is promoting the new Star Six and backing Consolidated Motors Inc. met with dubiety. He advertised: "The name Durant shall stand for something better than a football in Wall Street." The New York Times writer knew that, even though Mr. Durant's name may be a football of Wall Street, Mr. Durant himself is one of its most skilled footballers; hurt in a railroad accident and bedridden, yet he bravely persisted in his stock market activities (TIME, Feb. 1, 1926) ; practically impoverished after he was ousted from General Motors in 1920, he has since made himself many times a millionaire by stock market skill; market quotations are ham-and-eggs to him. Wrote the Time's writer slyly: "Shares of the Durant Motor Co. on the Curb Market were a little stronger yesterday in an irregular market. . . . The market for the shares was supported actively by Mr. Durant."