Evening star., 1941-10-19

Wide World Photo.
the Russell Sage mortgages BY thunder
I'll vote to bring the locusts back. but
won't vote to bring back the Russell
Sage mortgages
The price administrator did some
lobbying for the Russell Sage bill in
jefferson City at one time. There, too,
so story goes. he encountered stiff op-
position. Finally a veteran member of
the Legislature came up to Mr.. Hender-
sons room at the Madison House with a
proposition.
After some preliminary hemming and
having he came out with it. 1t was pro-
hibition, liquor was scarce and he'd
heard that Mr.. Henderson had a corner
on all the whisky in town. He allowed
as how if this young fellow from New
York could provide two or three cases of
bourbon, the committee that was hold
ing up his bill might change its attitude
The report about the whisky monopoly
was untrue but Henderson appealed to
some other lobbyists and enough pot
able liquor YVES forthcoming to work the
change with the committee.
HoratiO Alger Story.
That is the kind of first-hand knowl-
edge of people that Henderson has been
compelling necessity all his life The
story of his early years has already
become legend in the Horatio Alger
tradition. He was born As years ago in
Millville. N. j., to father and mother
so poor that it was a question of whether
he should quit school after the eighth
grade and 60 to work to help augment
the family income. -..4...f -'.
The deciding voice was that of his
grandmother Beebe, a determined old
lady who saw things in the young Leon
that no one else discovered. Of course
he would have to work his way through
high school and after that, if he was
so bold as to try, through college.
But nothing daunted, this boy with
the shock of black hair and the ready
grin got himself three jobs to begin
with. At dawn he delivered the Mill
NAiAC AscpuDiiOdll wv 1dOCl llC
collected the neighborhood children and
drove them to school. At noon he took
down the telephoned United Press re-
port in the Millville Republican Office.
At 2:20 he dashed from school for an
other 10 minutes with the United Press
Then when school was out, he collected
the kids for his neighborhood. And
finally when this job was done, he BIZ
cycled back to town to play, depending
on the season, basket ball, baseball, foot
ball or track.
Worked Way at Swarthmore.
Similarly at Swarthmore College out
side Of Philadelphia he did every con-
ceivable kind of job from secretarial
work to baby-tending to earn his way.
Swarthmore was for Leon the first
taste of something like ease and luxury
and he f1ourished there.
IN 1917, a junior, he enlisted in the
Ordnance Corps. His rise in the Army
was almost as rapid as his upward
climb at Swarthmore. In January,
1918, he was made second lieutenant
and on transfer to the War Departments
property accounting division here cap
tain.
He combined his senior year at
Swarthmore with teaching at the Uni
versity Of Pennsylvania Economics
was Hendersons field and for two years
after graduation he taught at Swarth-
more and at Pennsylvania. From there
he went to Carnegie Tech at Pitts
burgh.
Henderson believed that economics
should be taught not so much through
textbook theory as through direct ex-
perience with the facts of life. He used
Pittsburgh with its vast steel industry
as laboratory for his students. When
his methods became too unorthodox for
conservative Tech, Henderson resigned.
Conventions Ignored.
Conventions have never been allowed
to stand in the way of this tough
minded economist. Here he has gone
his own way. calmly ignoring both social
and official taboos. After the N. R. A.
folded up he become economist for
I1OphhlS dllu tilC W. Z ~ I1Cli-
derson was almost alone in foreseeing
the slump that was to come at the end
of 1887 and the beginning of 1888. His
prophecies did not make him popular
with the New Dealers but he stuck to
his figures and his charts and time was
soon to prove him all too right.
Henderson is man of strong emo
tions. The tragic plight of the Loyal
lists during the civil war in Spain moved
him deeply and he did what he could
to win sympathy for their cause in
this country. Other officials felt the
same way but, fearing criticism, they
were less frank.
On one occasion Henderson and his
wife opened their house for tea for the
cause, the attraction being the poet,
Dorothy Parker She was late in arriv-
ing and when she finally did come news
photographers were allowed considerable
time to photograph her seated, about to
talk, on the Henderson grand piano.
Finally tht host announced that enough