Evening star., 1937-10-11
OGDEN MILLS Dies;
|LEADER IN c. 0. P.
WAS ILL z WEEKS
Successor to Mellon as Sec.
retary of Treasury
Was Only So.
ACTIVITIES INCLUDED
MANY DIRECTORSHIPS
Served on Board of New York Her.
aid Tribune and Linotype Com.
pany-Leading New Deal Foe.
(Picture on Page AL

BY the Associated Press.
NEW YORK. October 11.-Ogden L.
Mills, former Secretary of the Treas
ury, died at his home here today at
11:59 am. He was SO years old
According to business associates, his
death came with seemingly trivial
illness which had kept him from his
desk for two weeks.
Mr.. Mills had suffered several slight
illnesses in the course of the Summer.
He took long cruise In the hot
weather on his yacht Avalon from his
home club, the Cold Spring Harbor
Beach Club, ending at the New York
Yacht Club station at Newport.
Because Of these recurring illnesses,
Mills had given up much of his activi-
ties in the Republican party.
Activities Manifold.
AT the time of his death, Mills
activities were manifold. He was a
director in the Cerro de Casco Cop
per Corp, the New York Herald Trib-
une Co., the Chase National Bank.
the Merganthaler Linotype Co., the
National Biscuit Co. and the Sea-
board Oil Co.
Mills rose to his highest prom
inence in the Nations affairs under
President Hoover, who made him Sec.
retary of the Treasury in February,
1882, when Andrew Mellon, whom he
had served as Undersecretary of the
Treasury, retired.
Mills left public Office when Presi-
dent Roosevelt entered the White
House. He was always a leading foe
of the New Deal.
Mills is survived by his widow, the
former Mrs. Dorothy Randolph Fell.
daughter of Philip S. P. Randolph
OF Philadelphia. They had no chill
| dren.
Although Mr.. Mills was "born with
a gold spoon in his mouth" and had
little inducement except the tradi-
tions of ancestors to carve out a
career, his life was well-rounded.
An able f1nancier, skilled ward
politician. pleasant and graceful
socialite, leading tax expert. a pro-
mulgator of social welfare legislation.
| successful corporation counsel. a
soldier of considerable distinction, a
Congressman and cabinet officer
these were the things Mr.. Mills sue
ceeded in being for no better reason
than that he wanted to be them.
He worked on the average Of 10
hours a day, he told friends, and al
though he was director of many large
corporations. an officer or trustee of
numerous charities and an outstand-
ing figure in the Republican party, he
always had time to chat with friends
or laugh heartily at a witticism.
After getting his law degrees from
Harvard in 1907, with high grades, he
became an employe and then partner
of Stetson, Jennings & Russell, New
York law firm, and soon was in de-
mand as corporation trial lawyer.
But dissatisfied with a career that
seemed solely devoted to pecuniary
gain. Mr.. Mills. only year after be-
ing admitted to the New York bar,
became active in ward politics. In
1912 he ran for Congress but was
defeated.
Two years later he was elected to the
State Senate and began to reflect the
lively interest in social welfare dis
played by his grandfather, Darius
Ogden Mills, founder of the Mills
hotels" Also he had a fair for
quickly grasping financial problems
and his advice soon was sought by
fellow legislators on tax questions.
Became Army Captain.
He resigned in 1917 to accept a
commission as captain in the United
States Army. He served with the
A. E. F. in France and was singled
out for special instruction and duty in
staff work.
After the war Will Hays, then Re-
publican national chairman, drafted
him in 1920 as chairman of the i'm
portant Committee on Policies and
Platform and made him also member
of the Committee on Resolutions. That
Autumn Mr.. Mills was elected to Con-
gress, and in his first year in the Ma
tional House, was appointed to the
Influential Committee on Ways and
Means.
He served three terms in Congress
piling up substantial majorities in a
New York district that was closely
divided. He gave up his seat to run
for Governor of New York in the 1926
election, but was defeated by Al Smith,
whose huge New York city vote over
came the majorities which Mr.. Mills
won upstate"
Drafted BY Treasury Department
Shortly before the expiration of his
third term in Congress in 1927, he
was appointed Undersecretary of the
Treasury, winning the confidence and
approval Of Andrew Mellon. then Sec
retary. In February, 1882, when
Mellon retired, Mills was named to
succeed him in the Hoover cabinet,
serving until the Inauguration of
President Franklin D. Roosevelt on
March 4, 1898.
Mr.. Mills came of Colonial stock.
His father was Ogden Mills, q banker,
philanthropist and turfman, and his
mother was Ruth T. Livingston of an
old New York family. Mills was born
August %, 1884, at the family's Sum-
mer home in Newport. r. I.
In September, 1911, he married Miss
Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherford,
daughter of Mrs. w. K. Vanderbilt, ST.,
by the latter's second marriage to
Lewis Morris Rutherford. This union
ended in Paris divorce in 1920, the
former Mrs. Mills later marrying Sir
Paul Dukes, English publicist.
Mr.. Mills was married again in Sep
tember, 1924, to Mrs. Dorothy RAN
dolph Fell, daughter of Philip s.
P. Randolph Of Philadelphia, He had