The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-10-15
BY FORREST DAVIS
Times staff Writer


Telegram Corporation.)
GAM INSULTS granite nature
~ had undergone a decisive
change by 1928. In that twelve
month Of economic sorcery where
In Mr.. Hoover won the presidency
on the, no doubt, sincere, prom
Use to abolish poverty, insult be-
came q plunger; he Joined the
company of romantic adventures
who swallowed whole the dogma
of perpetually expanding pros
perity
Outwardly, the power king, near
ing 70, seemed much the same
hard-bitten, realistic utilities op-
orator.
Chubby now, gray hair thin
ming, the hard, imperious lines
etched deeper into his shrewd
face, he yet appeared melloWer,
more kindly to his associates.
He was, indeed, softening.
Few of the men who came
along the road to mastery with
him survived. Few remained to
call him Sam"
He was IS. l." now, younger
lntlmates adopting the American
business executives fondneSs for
the initiated address. Scarcely one
dared question his judgments. He
had selected and advanced nearly
every man near him. Perhaps
that modified his aSperities.
A glutton for detail, he still
made it an invariable rule to be
at his desk in the Commonwealth
Edison skyscraper at 7:30.
He INDUCED associates and en-
ployes by an hour, but if they
were tardy at $50 he was pleased
to be annoyed.
insult seldom TESTED. In fact,
the only raillery his personal at
torney for 20 years ever heard
him utter, dealt with the sub
ject of early hours.
I'VE heard that joke repeated
ly," the lawyer recalled. AT le-
gal conferences insult would purr:
Well, gentlemen, you are the
only ones who are able to lie
abed all day and still make liv-
ing. I warrant none of you gets
down before o'clock"
EARLY-TO-WORK, punctual-
II ity, those were fetiches with
the aging power king.
I get my desk cleared and
days work done before the others
show up" he Dragged. A sure
way to his regard was for
youngster to keep his long hours.
Outwardly. he seemed the same.
Fleeringly censorious of plumbers,
intolerant of advice, a hard mas
ter: relatively benevolent utili-
ties operator, enjoying more and
more his role of civic leader, pa
iron of the arts and community
trouble shooter"
He saw himself as the builder
without rival; he bore light and
power into village and country
side in half the continent; ne APP
pretended, with considerable van
ity, that he, the five shilling-a-
week apprentice clerk who was,
had become the first of the super
power kings as there had been
railroad. pa ting, harvester, steel
and oil king before.
His energy remained undated
AS he approached the beginnings
Of his crisis.
Henry Justin Smith. Chicago
journalist, observed him one
morning as he stepped springily
across the sidewalk to enter his
building. insult was, Smith re-
ported, "a stocky, pink faced
man full of steam and APP
rently glad that early hours were
invented
1t required challenge to bring
out the inner weakness and the
profound collapse of the insult
empire four years later to expose
the dismaying extent of his folly.
Fear drove him to eXcesSes-the
gripping fear that first one, then
another, younger adversary would
hurl him from his throne.
A LFRED LOEWENSTEIN, the
"A sensational Belgian adven-
turer, supplied the first challenger,
as Cyrus S. Eaton, the former
Baptist divinity student, steel
magnate and Cleveland financial
wizard, would furnish the second
and successful, test of insults
power.
First, Loewenstein, whose disap-
pearance from an airplane over
the English channel on July 4,
1928, convulsed European stock
exchanges; then Eaton drove the
Power King into La Sale street,
plagued him into fighting on their
grounds and, in the end, helped
persuade him that he was mas
ter of money, of finance, as he
had known himself to be of utili.
ties operation.
Loewenstein, one of postwar
Europe's mystery men," a Jew
who embraced the Church of
Rome. a pioneer l.. the rayon in
dustry, rose from poverty in 1918
to an even more glamorous in
dustrial peak in Europe than In
sui occupied over here.
With Sir Basil Zaharoff. NUM-
tions king; Hairy. the English
promoter; Hugo SHINES. who
bought up half of Germany during
the great imitation, Loewenstein