The sun., 1898-10-17
N DANGER OF DISSOLUTION
The Once Famous Manufacturers
Club of Philadelphia on
Its Last Legs.
THE CLUB DEEPLY IN DEBT
Delawareans Found the Luxuriously
Appointed Apartments in Disorder
and Practical Ruin, and Will
Have Their Names Stricken
From the Roster.

From the Roster.
The Manufacturers Club. OF Philadel-
phia, an organization that numbers
amongst its members some of the most
prominent business men OF Delaware,
Pennsylvania, and contingent states is at
the most critical stage of it's existence.
A meeting will be held this evening
for the purpose of deciding the at one
time famous clubs future and the proba-
bilities are that it will go out of exist
ence.
Several Delaware members visited the
club headquarters one evening last week
for the purpose of stopping over night
but on being shown their apartments
changed their plan and engaged rooms in
some of the nearby hotels.
The reason for this Was that they
found the once luxuriously appointed
apartments in the utmost disorder. The
rooms from their appearance had not
been cleaned for weeks and the furniture
broken and sadly in need Of repair.
They then left the place in disgust,
and at tonight's meeting will, it is said,
withdraw from the organization. They
are not the only ones that will have their
names stricken from the register as re.
suit of the mismanagement of the club
for the past year, as members from other
states will follow in their footsteps.
The Dslawareans who belong to the
club are J. Edward Addicks, Claymont;
Walter G. Curtis, Newark, John Pilling
and Thomas Pilling, Stanton; Max B.
Feldman, New Castle; John Rockford
Bancroft, ]. r. Beetam, Jacob F. Frantz,
Charles E. Fritz, Edgar NJ. Hopes, j.
Morton Poole, Charles W. Pusey, John
J. Satterthwaite, w. L.. G. Thomas and
E. T. Walton, Wilmington.
The reason for the decline of the club,
as has been intimated, is mismanage-
ment, and its debts and fixed charges
have created deficiency of over $l00, 600
above the offer of $l75,O00 made for the
club house by Mr.. Boldt.
Members have been called upon SO
often to subscribe for one thing and
another in connection with the club that
they are no longer responsive, and even
the most sanguine of the present direc-
tors despair of overcoming the deficit.
The most radical changes are, however,
being contemplated in an effort to save
the club.
A Delaware member of the club, in
speaking of the matter last night, said:
LAS soon as the members realize that
the pomp and circumstance of the club
house are to be done away with and the
present commodious, but ill-constructed
quarters abandoned for something even
less pretentious, they will leave the club
like rats from doomed ship. As it is,
the club has had to make the most heroic
efforts to keep up its membership, in
spite of which the roll has diminished to
an alarming extent.
"There was time " hen the Manu-
facturers' Club was an institution of al
most national fame. Its Board of Direc-
tors was composed entirely of men of
the greatest business prominence, and
in its palmiest days its secretary was
William S. Stockton, brother of the
novelist. Mr. Stockton, who was eX-
ceedingly popular, organized several
foreign tours for the members of the
club, and it was while he was absent
on one Of these tours that new man
agement came in. When he returned
he found that the office he had occupied
for over eight years had been abolished
and his place filled by stranger under
the title of superintendent.
'It is a we'll known fact that the f.
nances of the club have always been
more or less weak, and during Mr.. Stock
toms tenure of office the restaurant
showed big loss. Nevertheless it is also
a fact that new members were enrolled
in large numbers from all over the State
of Pennsylvania and contiguous states,
and the outlook was bright, while many
members whose memberships in other
clubs made the Manufacturers Club a
business luxury simply retained their
membership in the club on account of
their friendship for Mr.. Stockton.
Many members of the club will bear
witness that the club has not been the
same since Mr.. Stockton was deposed.
The threads of family intercourse which
he held in his hand and manipulated 80
deftly are now scattered and tangled, ,and
the general homelike conditions which
he made there are no more.
"While the restaurant has not been
paying feature of the club, yet it has been
an essential one, and steps toward re-
trenchment by its abolition will be the
first step by the management toward the
immolation of the club in it's entirety. As
for renting offices in the Bourse or any
building other than new and commo-
dious club house of its own, the club
would not hold together year, and
whatever is done at the meeting will
have to be of an extraordinary character
to dispel the deepening shadows.
At st. Paul's Church.