Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-06-28
CORPORATION FIGUREHEADs.

CORPORATION F1GUREHEADS. Many Best Known Financiers Come
 Under Head Dummy Directors"
 How many corporations man may genuinely serve as a director without being figurehead in any one of them is complex question. Some capitalists make it fixed rule not to enter the directorate of any corpora tion unless they are certain of their ability to actually assist in the di- rection of it's affairs. Others seem to go on the principle of getting mem they possibly can. seemingly without regard to their fitness or ability to be of legitimate service.
 Until recently, Chauncey M. De- pew was a director in seventy-nine corporations, most of them railroads controlled by the Vanderbilts. Though 1t is a mental impossibility for one man to keep in close touch with the affairs of seventy-nine cor porations. 1t would not be fair to class MT Depew among the dummy directors. He was put into the cor porations chiefly to represent the Vanderbilt family stockholdings and carry out the Vanderbilt policy of management
 William H. Newman, Mir Depew's successor as president of the New York Central railroad, is director in sixty-eight corporations, most of them railroads MT Newman probably holds the record as a president of corporations Of the sixty-eight con- panies he serves as director he is president of forty-four. This might expose him to the charge of being a dummy president were 1t not for the fact that most of the forty-four com panies are small railroads-compo ent parts, or feeders, of the main lines of the Vanderbilt system. MT Newman is not the only man em- ployed by the Vanderbilts to repre- sent the family interests in corpora tions. John Christensen, one of the confidential men of the Vanderbilts; is a director in forty-two corpora tions; Charles F. Cox, another con- fidential representative, is in twenty nine corporations as a director, and Edward V. w. Rossiter represents the Vanderbilt family as director in fifty-two corporations.
 James Stillman is director in a larger number of corporations than any other member of the Standard Oil group of capitalists. He serves as director in fifty-eight companies. William Rockefeller is in forty-one, Henry H. Rogers is in twenty-five, Daniel O'Day Is in twenty. and Charles M. Pratt is in fourteen. John D. Rockefeller, as mas been stated, confines his energies to one corpora tion, the Standard Oil company, of which he Is president as we'll as di- rector. J. Pierpont Morgan, though a director in forty-seven corporations, is not an officer of single one. Au- gust Belmont, head of the transporta- tion system of New York city and American representative of the Rothschilds, Is in twenty-seven cor porations as director; Anthony N. Brady serves fifty companies: George F. Baker, president of the First Ma tional bank, is in forty-three; George J. Gould, head of the Gould family, is in fifty-three; Henry c. Hunting ton serves in directorates of sixty one corporations. most of them the creations of the late Collis P. Hunt ington; and the veteran financier, Russell Sage, though we'll on the way to nonagenarian age, still clings to directorships in twenty-six corpor- ations.
 Thomas F. Ryan, who, next to John D. Rockefeller. is regarded In the Wall street district as the most determined money-maker in America. is a director in thirty-two corpora tions: but these do not represent his total interests, by any means. He has placed his personal counsel. Paul D. Cravath, in the directorates of dozen companies. and he has other confidential men whom he employs , in a similar capacity. Norman P. neam. the right hand man of the late Marshall Field is director in thirty one corporations. Alexander E. Orr. recently elected president of the New York Life Insurance company. is in tventy-nine. and William A. Clark, United States senator. is director in thirty-two. of which he Is presf- dent of twenty-five.
 All of these men would probably bitterly resent being called dummy directors. but if the real facts of their activities. or inactivities, in corporations they supposedly serve could be learned some basis for the charge would undoubtedly be found