Athletic Christian

Athletic Christian

George H. Earle 3rd, rich Philadelphia socialite, contributed handsomely to his friend Franklin Roosevelt's fund in 1932. Next year he sailed off to be Minister to Austria. Last year Minister Earle resigned his post to run for Governor of Pennsylvania. Anthony Joseph Drexel ("Tony") Biddle Jr., rich Philadelphia socialite, contributed handsomely to his friend George Earle's campaign fund. One evening last week after a farewell dinner on the Starlight Roof of Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria hotel "Tony" Biddle gratefully gripped Governor Earle's hand.* sailed off to be Minister to Norway (TIME, July 22).

The first Biddle settled on the banks of the Delaware before William Penn. Now Philadelphia lists some 70 in its Social Register. Most famed of Biddies a quarter-century ago was "Tim O'Biddle," ring name of Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Sr. Bob Fitzsimmons called him one of the best amateur boxers of his day. In 1908 he stayed four rounds with "Philadelphia Jack" O'Brien. Biddle Sr.'s other great passion was for Christ and somehow mystically he combined the two in a movement called Athletic Christianity. Mixing Bible lessons with boxing bouts, he would tell his young disciples: "I want you boys to go in there and fight as if Christ were the referee."

Big, rawboned, ugly "Tony" Biddle went to St. Paul's School where, like his father, he ably mixed Christianity and athletics. He did not go to college. Instead, in 1915, aged 18, he married Mary Duke, who eventually fell heir to the millions of her father, Benjamin Newton Duke, brother of the late great Tobacco-Tycoon James Buchanan ("Buck") Duke. In 1931, after bearing him two children, Mary Duke Biddle divorced her husband, who shortly married Mrs. Margaret Thompson Schulze, daughter & heiress of the late Col. William Boyce Thompson, mining tycoon. With a superbly shaped pair of shoulders, lean, muscular Minister Biddle has been voted by tailors one of the "world's ten best-dressed men." He is well-liked by his neighbors in Philadelphia, Manhattan, Newport, Palm Beach and Paris, is expert in tennis, polo, golf, fencing, boxing. His business life has been less happy.

Few years ago he bought a Belgian middleweight prizefighter named Rene DeVos, introduced him to U. S. pugilism at a smart hotel party. Plug-ugly guests disappeared with quantities of silverware and fine wine, did their best to make off with a piano. In 1929 he and some associates plopped a swank Casino in the middle of Manhattan's Central Park. Accommodated with a modest rental by Mayor "Jimmy" Walker, the Casino has been under fire almost ever since for its undemocratic prices, its oversized profits.

Four years ago "Tony" Biddle and seven other onetime directors of bankrupt Sonora Products Corp. of America were sued by the company's receiver, Irving Trust Co.. which charged them with general mismanagement and with diverting $1,500,000 worth of profits from stock sales to their own pockets. A Federal District judge acquitted the defendants, was reversed last autumn by a Circuit Court of Appeals. Last May, on the request of Irving Trust which charged that his "pecuniary position is precarious" and that he had been "fraudulently conveying away his property" until he had "substantially stripped himself of his assets," a Federal Court in Manhattan required "Tony" Biddle to post a $100,000 bond to get permission to leave the U. S. Before he sailed for his post in Norway last week, Minister Biddle had settled the case against him out of court, had had the bond canceled.

* Two days later, in his brother's Saranac Lake camp, Governor Earle stepped on a punky floor board, crashed through, painfully wrenched his right leg and hip.

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