The Newcomeners

Novelist John P. Marquand was the guest of honor at a luncheon last week in his old home town of Newburyport, Mass., attended by 200 of New England's top businessmen. But, as the nation's leading satirist later confessed, he was not quite sure why he had been honored. Novelist Marquand might have wondered still more if he had turned his satiric eye on the group which honored him, and which he had joined only shortly before. Its name: the Newcomen Society of England in North America.

In the land of Eagles, Elks and Lions, the American Newcomen Society is an odd specimen. It probably has the largest and most lustrous roster of big business names in the U.S. Among its 12,200 mem bers are the presidents of all the railroads running into the New York area, the chair men of most of Manhattan's large banks, the nation's top leaders in oil, aluminum, steel, rubber, advertising and almost all other industries.

Anchors & Mooring. The expressed purpose of the society is to study "material" (i.e., nonpolitical) and industrial his tory, with the lofty goal of establishing a "kind of mooring of stability for American business leaders in the troubled waters of America today." The chief moorings seem to be the dinners or luncheon, such as the one for Marquand, at which the honored guest, usually a businessman and always a Newcomener, tells the story of how his own organization became a success. (Marquand spoke on "Federalist Newburyport.") The speech is often printed in booklet form by the Princeton University Press and widely distributed by the society--usually at the expense of the honored guest or his employer.

Barnum & Canterbury. The American Newcomen Society in its present state is the creation of Charles Penrose,* 66, the dynamic member of a Philadelphia engineering firm who has been described as a combination of P. T. Barnum and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The society was originally started in England in 1920 as a technical group commemorating Thomas Newcomen, father of the steam engine. An American branch was soon launched by the late Leonor F. Loree, longtime dean of American railroad presidents. Penrose, a close friend of Loree's, was a charter member.

For years, the American branch idled along; there were only 323 members in England and America in 1933, when Penrose took over as senior vice president for North America. He formed sectional committees, started a go-get-'em campaign to sign up industrialists, educators, bankers and businessmen, and the membership soared. Few ties still exist with the British organization. (British Newcomeners, who number less than 500, all serious technical men, look somewhat askance at the U.S. operation as a mere marching & chowder club.)

Nevertheless, America's Newcomen Society remains staunchly loyal to Britain. Its dinners are solemnly closed with a toast to the President and the Queen ("Gentlemen, the toast is well concluded. You may smoke"). Its headquarters in West Chester, Pa. are adorned with the Union Jack. There is a chapel which has never been used but about which Charles Penrose says: "If any British prelate came to this country, he could be received there." Newcomen dinner invitations and announcements, printed in antique type, carry the Penrosean legend: "If ever American Newcomen should stand true to the best traditions of England and America--it is now."

Dinners & Booklets. In running Newcomen operations, Penrose stands true to one American tradition: he controls them with such canniness that they turn a profit which might surprise even the tycoons who are his members. For his labors, Penrose gets no salary, but collects expenses, devotes almost all his time to the society. Newcomen gives 60 or 70 dinners a year in honor of a businessman, educator or other leading citizen./- Newcomeners who attend pay a big markup on the actual cost, and the honoree or his company usually pays for himself and guests. From dinners and luncheons each year, the society turns a good profit. It also collects some $50,000 in dues ($5.50 a year) from members.

Nearly five years ago, Penrose set up a corporation to print illustrated pamphlets containing the speeches given at dinners. Since the speeches are excellent publicity for a company, most corporations are glad to buy 12,000 or more at 50-c- apiece. Sometimes, as in the case of educators, Newcomen foots most of the printing bill itself. Last year Newcomen Publications, Inc. published about 55 different booklets for a gross of more than $400,000 and a net of some $275,000.

Books & Benevolence. About one-third of these profits was turned over to the Newcomen Society for various uses; the rest was put into the publishing company's surplus, which amounts to about $375,000. Just what it will eventually be used for, nobody knows: possibly it will be spent for enlarging the Newcomen summer headquarters in Kittery, Me., or adding to its library of some 35,000 volumes in Pennsylvania. Most Newcomeners are willing to let Charlie Penrose decide that, are well satisfied with the society and the way he runs it like a "benevolent despot." Says Penrose: "We are attempting to hold up to America the vision and the courage and the hard work and abiding faith--make that a capital F--of the men. who years ago created the America which we have inherited."

*Distant cousin of the late Senator Boies Penrose, longtime G.O.P. boss of Pennsylvania.

/-Some recent honorees: Samuel H. Kauffman, president, Washington Star; I. W. Hellman, president, Wells Fargo Bank & Union Trust Co.; Dr. Thomas Lafayette Popejoy, president, University of New Mexico.

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