Banker to Religion via Stars

One hot day last summer Charles Hayden, potent private banker of Manhattan and director of 82 corporations, found himself in Chicago with time on his hands. Casting about for amusement, this ubiquitous socialite bachelor strolled into the Adler Planetarium.

In the centre of the domed room Banker Hayden beheld a great dumbbell-shaped Zeiss projection instrument like a Martian death-ray machine straight out of an early Wells novel. A packed audience of moppets and grownups murmured as 2,700 stars winked in their proper places on the dim vault overhead, as the planets glowed, as the Milky Way streamed in soft splendor. A lecturer identified stars and constellations with a flashlight beam. As the projector moved on its complex nest of gears, aeons of astronomical time flashed by. Realizing that this was no idle frivolity but a magnificent glimpse of infinity, Charles Hayden was moved as he had rarely been moved before. Back in his Manhattan office, Mr. Hayden heard of plans to supply New York City with a planetarium to match Chicago's. President Frederick Trubee Davison of the American Museum of Natural History had created a planetarium Authority, got RFC's promise to take $650,000 of planetarium bonds to be paid off by millions of 25-c- admissions. The RFC loan was enough to pay for the building. But additional contributions were needed for the Zeiss projector, whose standard price of $110,000 was rapidly mounting in terms of Roosevelt dollars. On his round of wealthy citizens who might help, President Davison last week dropped in on Mr. Hayden. To his surprise and joy Mr. Hayden flipped out his checkbook, wrote him a check for $150,000, enough to make further contribution-seeking unnecessary. When Mr. Hayden had got his feelings under control, he explained his benefaction thus: "It has been said many times that science has a tendency to make one less religious. With this thought I radically disagree. I do not consider that religion is measured by the number of times a person goes to church. I think true religion is based on the principle that one believes there is a much greater Power in the universe than the human being on earth. ... I hope that the planetarium when completed will give many people that view of life."

The museum enthusiastically announced that ground would be broken in a few days, officially resolved that the project "shall henceforth bear the official title and be referred to as the Hayden Planetarium." The Press printed sketches showing the projection dome rising like a vast moon behind a fac,ade supported by six Grecian pillars and graven with the words HAYDEN PLANETARIUM.

Then, as though suddenly abashed, donor Hayden took refuge aboard the Rex, sailed on a ten-week trip to Africa to have a look at British copper mines including financially sensational Roan Antelope.

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