Adieu

A tremulous smile on his lips, his wrinkled hands shaking, Samuel Insull last week cleaned out his desk. Friends came in to pay their respects. Newspaper reporters stood by. Typical Insullisms on that last sad day:

"I've gone from the bottom to the top and now to the bottom again. I only hope I will be able to keep a roof over my head and care for my wife."

"I have ceased to be newspaper copy. And I am out of public life. ... So I ought to be entitled to privacy."

"Here I go after 50 years of work, a man without a job."

In Chicago it was said that Mr. Insull owes banks $10,000,000 in addition to personal debts. His brother. Martin Insull, was said to be in debt to the extent of $7,000,000. Mrs. Samuel Insull was reported in like straits and so was Samuel Insull Jr. The whole family had loyally "gone down with the ship."

Insull creditors were reported in agreement not to force Samuel Insull through bankruptcy. The three big Insull operating companies, Peoples Gas, Public Service of Northern Illinois and Commonwealth Edison, last week each voted him $6,000 a year. His friends did not like to call it a "pension," said rather it was payment for "overtime work in the past." Beclouded was the outlook for Mr. Insull's expensive hobby, Chicago's Civic Opera. In Cleveland, Cyrus Stephen Eaton told newspapermen he was sorry for Samuel Insull. When Mr. Insull found out in 1928 that Mr. Eaton was buying Insull securities, he hastened to form the holding companies whose collapse precipitated his downfall, just as Mr. Eaton's overextension caused his.

Last week it was reported that the three operating companies will have to write off 9% of their assets. This $90,000,000 write-down would reduce their combined surplus to $7,200,000. Bankers who expect to handle the $70,000,000 financing necessary this summer anxiously awaited completion of a thorough audit.

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