Personnel

Last week the following were news:

P: In Reconstruction days after the Civil War good housewives bought "Pratt's Astral Oil," a clear-burning, high-grade brand of kerosene refined on Long Island by two bright young men named Charles Pratt and H. H. Rogers. John Rockefeller bought out their firm in 1874, taking the two partners with him. At that time Herbert Lee Pratt was a three-year-old in the oilman's large family. When he was 23 and his father had grown exceedingly rich as a Rockefeller henchman. Son Herbert was graduated from Amherst in the Class of 1895 along with Dwight Morrow and Calvin Coolidge.

Promptly to work in a Brooklyn refinery went Son Herbert. After an eight-year apprenticeship, he was promoted to one of the Rockefeller central committees --old Standard Oil's committee on manufacturing. When the Oil Trust was busted in 1911, Herbert Pratt was made vice president of the New York fragment, now Socony Vacuum Oil Co., Inc. And as he mounted to the presidency and on to the board chairmanship of the second largest member of the Standard group, the name Pratt grew as potent in the oil industry's gasoline age as it had been in kerosene. Last week Mr. Pratt suddenly severed all connection save that of stockholder with the company he had served for 40 years. He declared that he was taking advantage of the company's retirement plan.

If that meant that the company was pensioning him off, Mr. Pratt must have had his tongue in his cheek. The Pratt family's interest in Socony is exceeded only by that of the Rockefellers, Harknesses and Whitneys. And the Pratt family is a close-knit unit. On a 1,000-acre tract in lush Glen Cove, L. I. are seven Pratt houses--four occupied by Brothers Herbert, Charles, Harold and Frederic, another by the widow of Brother John, onetime Congresswoman Ruth Baker Pratt. In the centre of their communal estate are their stables and dairy barns, an institutional layout manned by numberless grooms and milkmen. As many as 100 big & little Pratts and their in-laws assemble for annual Christmas family reunions.

With the departure of Brother Herbert went other changes in Socony's high command. John A. Brown, executive committee chairman, was made president, and President Charles E. Arnott stepped down to a vice-presidency in order to devote more time to his plans for stabilizing the oil industry.

P: The prospect of a hot contest for the presidency of the New York Stock Exchange disappeared just before election last month when Richard Whitney decided not to seek official renomination for a sixth term and refused to head an independent ticket (TIME, April 15). He did, however, consent to become a candidate for one of the ten regular governorships open each year. Many an Exchange liberal was surprised when Broker Whitney polled 1,146 votes for Governor, 15 more than the vote which elected Charles R. Gay to the presidency. Last week Governor Whitney was elected chairman of the Committee on Bonds.

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