The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-11-16

Hodgeman said T can do no better than quote what MT. Norton, president or the old Colony clubs. said in a recent number of the Old Colony Magazine. This is the way Mir. Norton expresses it:
 T know of no simpler way to define the functions of the old Colony clubs than to call them the switchtowers of eX- ecutive energy.
 By providing an international me- chanism whereby multiplicity of de tail can be handled expeditiously for thousands of busy executives both in their home cities and while travelling the Old Colony club keeps an open track for each of them, preventing delays of innumerable kinds which would other wise result in a considerable loss of time and money.
 Going further than this. the club al- ready provides for and is developing many services of even greater impor- tance-services which are designed to aid the busy executive in his larger business problems. These services aim to aid him by providing information and data as well as to put him in instant touch with all sorts of sources of reliable and es- sential information.
 Thus the Old Colony club will facili- tate his business progress, preventing costly delays in production or distribu- tion, and in numerous other ways that will keep the tracks of business prog ress open in every direction
 Do you begin to see what I mean when I compare the Old Colony club to the switchman's tower? Let me make it. if possible, a little clearer
 T was washing up in the Pullman on my way down from Boston when I first heard of the old Colony club" said one of our Boston members. ITO a smoking room acquaintance I voiced my worry as to where 1 was going to stop in New York. l have accounts at four New York hotels, but none of them had re- piled to my wires for room reservations
 ' Let me fix you up said the man I had spoken to. I belong to a club whose business is to take all the bother and worry of that sort of thing off the minds or business men. It's only a suep from the station. Come up and have breakfast with me; shave and get a bath at the club before breakfast, il you want to-
 I'd never heard of such an institution. but l accepted his invitation, and he took me to the New York Old Colony club in the Hotel Manhattan. First, he introduced me to the manager, to whom told my troubles.
 Come in or phone at Il o'clock and we'll have room for you he said. Is there anything else we can do for you?'
 At breakfast my acquaintance told mo more of the Old Colony club and what it meant to the busy man away from home. I thought at once of a dozen services I had been wondering how best to have done.
 "I need that service I said. Ten minutes later l was handing a signed application to the club manager, who gave me guest card for use until my application could be acted upon
 The Old Colony club is not compet- tive but co-ordinative. It's mission is not to supplant any Of the already existing service institutions. not necessarily to add to their number but to correlate the service of all and bring it to a focus at one point, the club. so that the busy business man needs no other gateway through (Which to gain instant access, under the most favorable conditions. to every expert or specialized service he may desire to command, in person or from a distance-that is the ideal upon which the Old Colony club was founded and toward which 1t is constantly striv- ing to approach