Biggest Bond Machine

When industry was smaller and finance calmer, investors set out to buy bonds only upon their own initiative. But now the handling of a bond issue requires a vast distributive machine. When last week plans were perfected for the biggest bond machine in the world it was fitting that part of its name was that of the ancestor of all bond salesmen.

Norman Wait Harris just 49 years ago formed N. W. Harris & Co. of Chicago. Out of this firm grew Harris, Forbes & Co., premier U. S. municipal bond house. During recent years Harris, Forbes & Co. entered the utility field, became larger, somewhat more speculative and more potent in U. S. finance. Last year it suddenly, unexpectedly, fell into the large lap of Chase National Bank. Since Chase had its own bond machine, Chase Securities Corp., a physical merger of the two was long expected. Last week this was practically accomplished. Chase Securities Corp. will henceforth sell no bonds, merely own stocks of subsidiaries and perform those darkly mysterious duties which accrue to the securities affiliate of a major bank. Its bond-selling machine and that of Harris, Forbes & Co. will function as one great unit, Chase Harris Forbes Corp.

Just as Mother Chase has no less than 151 first and second vice presidents besides four officers higher than vice presi- dents, so Chase Harris Forbes Corp. presents an array of executives only less imposing numerically. It has an executive committee, a board of directors, a president. It has seven vice presidents dignified by the adjective "executive." Beneath them are 18 ordinary vice presidents. Should these all be effaced by some ghastly disaster seven assistant vice presidents would meet the emergency.

For the most part these officers form a rather uninspired pattern that has two basic motifs. One is negative: the officer must have made uncommonly few mistakes in or outside of his office. The other is an ability to work hard when hard work is demanded. So important are these two qualifications that, viewed as a whole, the officers have an amazing lack of individuality; minor variations become obscure, lost in the black and white crisscross of much work, few errors. There is for example Vice President John S. Linnen, to whom belongs the chief credit for Harris, Forbes & Co.'s justly famed municipal bond department. Banker Linnen is extremely quiet and settled as are his municipals. He lives in the Oranges (N. J.), devotes his Sundays to Church and Sunday School work, his Saturday afternoons to golf at which he plays an excellent game. And then there is Vice Chairman E. Carleton Granbery who was hired by Harris, Forbes & Co. on his statement that at college he did not work too hard, did not learn a great deal, but knew more men in his class than anybody else. Now he has a vast circle of friends in Wall Street, continually adds new ones. He belongs to the University Club as does Executive Vice President Murray Witherbee Dodge,, socialite who also belongs to the Links, the Racquet & Tennis, and the Down Town clubs.

From this roster, however, there may be picked at least one individuality which is so different from the rest that the pattern has not obscured it. It is that of Executive Vice President Charles Weir Beall (pronounced "Bell"). Mr. Beall is a talented buyer of securities, especially when they are issued by utilities. He is the author of many learned and shrewd clauses in public utility mortgage indentures. But he is also a showman, a lion-tamer. He is the owner of that conscientious troupe known as Weir's Performing Elephants, often to be seen in Manhattan's Hippodrome, Coney Island's Luna Park. He is a bachelor, has a zoo at Rockville Center, L. I. which the public can see for a dime, school children for nothing. Often he dons a canvas suit, enters his menagerie, mingles with his pets. His hands bear many scars from these encounters. He smokes great black cigars, talks sonorously, is the intimate of many a showman as well as many a banker.

In contrast with picturesque Lion-tamer Beall are the less romantic personalities of Chairman Lloyd Waddell Smith and President Harry M. Addinsell. Chairman Smith is tall, silver-haired, able in all fields of finance. He became a partner of Harris, Forbes in 1909 (after being with it ten years), its president in 1921. His pastimes are less exciting than lion-taming, consist of horticulture and history. He is known for his "organization work" in correlating the activities of his firm, also for his ability in writing financial advertising. Now aged 61, he is expected to retire before many years pass.

Another ex-Harris, Forbes man, another "organization man," is President Addinsell, 45. He was born in Brooklyn, went to public high school, then solicited financial advertising for the New York Times. After two years he left to work for Harris, Forbes. He studied at night and worked by day, acquired no eccentricities.

Chase Harris Forbes Corp. will have offices in 52 cities and will handle a tremendous volume of wholesale and retail bond business. In addition to Mr. Linnen's big municipal bond department, Harris, Forbes & Co. is banker for Associated Gas & Electric, the American- United Founders groups of companies, and does some of Cities Service's business. It also sells the issues of many utilities including such foreign ones as Westphalia United Electric and (with other bankers) the reorganized Berlin City Electric Co. Mother Chase has her finger in many pies, last year originated $266,000,000 worth of business, participated in syndicates totaling $675,000,000.

Masculine principal of this large financial household is still of course able Banker Albert Henry Wiggin. And much important fetching and bearing is done by Chase Harris Forbes Corp.'s 300 amiable salesmen.

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