Steel's Chair

The most important chairmanship held by John Pierpont Morgan is symbolized by the chair at the head of the partners' table in his firm's dining room where he and his 20 partners lunch every day. discuss the world's affairs. His next most important chair has for five years been the one around on Broadway at the head of the directors' table of United States Steel Corp. Mr. Morgan assumed that position in 1927 upon Judge Gary's death at the urgent request of his good friend the late George Fisher Baker. It was understood that his duties were to be next to nominal, the position temporary. Last week Banker Morgan resigned this second most important chair, saw placed in it Myron Charles Taylor, long groomed for the post as chairman of the finance committee. Chairman Taylor's duties will be far more than nominal; the official announcement said they will be "similar to those formerly exercised by the late Judge Gary."

In few other corporations does the chairmanship carry real weight and executive power. American Telephone & Telegraph, The Texas Corp. and many another large company has no chairman, the president presiding at directors' meetings. When Ford Motor Co.'s three directors meet, President Edsel Bryant Ford pre sides over his father and one Peter E. Martin.

In most cases the chairman is a former president retired to sinecure. The president gives orders as a team captain would, is controlled by the directors chiefly through their power to remove him. The chairman is often spokesman for his board. Typical of a chairman who uses his position as a rostrum is voluble Charles Michael Schwab of Bethlehem Steel Corp. Examples of well-known chairmen who have retired into the position are Charles Sumner Woolworth, 75, and Henry Holiday Timken. 64. Some chairmanships are frankly nominal. Such is James Anson Campbell's position as "chairman emeritus" of Youngstown Sheet & Tube and George O. Knapp's as "honorary chairman" of Union Carbide. Edwin Wilbur Rice Jr. is "honorary board chairman" of General Electric while the real chairmanship is held by active Owen D. Young, also chairman of the executive committee of Radio Corp.

There are a few companies in which the president is better known than the chairman. Doubtless more people could name Colby Mitchell Chester Jr., as president of General Foods Corp. than could name Edward F. Hutton as chairman, despite the latter's fame as a broker. Simon Guggenheim, president of American Smelting & Refining, is more famed than Chairman Francis Herbert Brownell. General Motors' President Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr. is far more in the public eye than Lammot du Pont, chairman.

In utilities the chairman is more apt to be a financial man. Floyd Leslie Carlisle, close to National City Bank, holds the chair of Consolidated Gas Co. of New York while Banker John Edward Aldred has that position in Consolidated Gas, Electric Light & Power Co. of Baltimore. Samuel Insull is chairman of Middle West Utilities and his brother Martin president. Chairman Bernard Capen Cobb of Commonwealth & Southern is an operating man but he has spent many years in a Wall Street house.

In railroads, where the division between operating and financial management is sharp, the president is almost always an oldtime railroad man--viz. Pelley, Baldwin, Williamson, Budd. Storey. Rail chairmen are usually bankers or lawyers. Robert S. Lovett of the U.P. was its counsel for five years. Financier Harold Stirling Vanderbilt heads the C. & N. W. as chairman, just as Financier Arthur Curtiss James heads Western Pacific.

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