Versatile Lew

Lewis Williams Douglas will not be 45 until next month, but he has already gone far in three careers: business, politics and pedagogy. He quit teaching history at Amherst in 1920 to go back to his native Arizona and follow his grandfather and father into the mining business. But Lew Douglas felt he had a mission in life. He got into politics and served three terms in the House (where he made a reputation for understanding Government finance) before President Roosevelt made him Director of the Budget in 1933. Hard-headed Lewis Douglas washed his hands of the budget when his boss refused to balance it, and turned into a first-line foe of the New Deal.

He lectured against New Deal finance during four years as vice president and director of American Cyanamid Corp., then in December 1937 he resigned to become principal of McGill University in Canada. His administration was successful, but not altogether happy for Lew Douglas. He was too far from the U. S. political-economic scene. Last week he was offered, and promptly accepted, a new job: president of Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York, effective January 1. As head of the fifth largest insurance company (assets: $1,399,427,496), he will not only be able to use his genius for economy, but will be able to speak with nonacademic authority on economic issues that may be raised in 1940.

> Since the Chicago Stock Exchange adopted a plan to have a paid president in March 1938, conservative and progressive factions have jockeyed for power. Progressive President Thaddeus R. ("Brick") Benson, who pushed through the reorganization, was the man most mentioned for the paid presidency. He went so far as to dissolve his firm, presumably because the new constitution provided that the president must have no business interest in the exchange. But soon after the reorganization Conservative Arthur Betts was named chairman and president pro tern. For a year Chicago waited to see who would get the permanent post. Last week the Exchange's governors settled the question by upping Vice President Kenneth Lloyd Smith, 35, a conservative wheelhorse. His experience: four years in the office of Illinois' Secretary of State, eight years as assistant secretary of the Exchange.

> One of the most effectively vocal defenders of the utilities industry in recent years has been sharp-eyed Charles Wetmore Kellogg, who served two years (1936-38) as unpaid, part-time president of the Edison Electric Institute, the industry's statistical and public relations organization. Last week the Institute revised its setup, voted itself a fulltime, paid ($40,000 a year) president. To Charles W. Kellogg, now 59, who resigned as chairman of Engineers Public Service Co. last week, went the job. His biggest task: to win the public's sympathy for the utilities in their long-standing feud with the Government.

> Interstate Commerce Commission since it was founded in 1887 has followed the not-too-sense-making custom of making each of its members in turn chairman for a year. Last week it broke with precedent, picked its outstandingly able member, Commissioner Joseph Bartlett Eastman, 56, as chairman for a three-year term, beginning July 1.

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