The Wyandotte herald. (Wyandotte, Mich.) 1879-1943, 1942-10-09
WHO'S
NEWS
THIS
WEEK
By LEMUEL F. PARTON
con.o,ida,.d restur..-wNu Release.

Consolidated Features-WNU Release.
NEW YORK.-Iron men and rub
Der transport is better than
vice-versa, if one wanted to ring the
changes on the old wooden ship ad-
An Iron Man Is M letters.
To Pull Us Out president of
Of Rubber Morass -c cns union rni1road a
the new rubber administrator is, by
all accounts an iron man. The occa-
sional rubber man in the railroad
business is apt to come from the
speculative zone of railroading Mr..
LETTERS, the iron man, has come all
the way up, in So years, entirely in
operation and management.
The Baruch rubber report has
stepped up the deep-throated ma
tional roar demanding hard-boiled
management in this war, to say
nothing of operation. When Mr.. JEFF
ferS succeeded the late Carl Gray
as president of the Union Pacific in
q,
associate of Mr.. LETTERS.
Hes hard-headed, hard-isted
and hard-hitting," said this in
fOrmant. Hell highball an Or
der right through to where it is
going, and make sure that it
never gets sidetracked and that
it gets results. His effectiveness
lies in knowing what he wants
and then getting just that. Like
all good executives, he will hire
a specialized intelligence to look
after details which he is too
busy to master and in doing so
he never gets buried under the
small impedimenta which some
times swamp less purpOseful
men,"
Mr.. LETTERS is supposed to have
been grooved into his new job by
Averell Hartman, chairman of the
board of the Union Pacific, defense
iaison official and lend-lease admin
iStrator for Britain. 1t is obvious
that Mr.. LETTERS knows how to keep
'em rolling" which is the main idea
in wartime, whether the tires be of
rubber or iron. This is the prevail
ing explanation of the detachment
of master railroader from his job
at a time when such mastery is ur-
gently needed where it is Mr.. JEFF
fers writes off $40, 000-a-year
salary.
1t was in 1880, in his native
North Platte, Neb., that he
started his career with the I'm
ion Pacific, as an Office boy. By
1900, he became chief train dis
patcher and he hasn't had q va
cation in the succeeding AZ
years. A most infexible man
takes over our most flexible,
and indispensable commodity.
IT WOULDN'T be surprising to
Z see Thurman Arnold proceeding
against Anthony J. Drexel Biddle
Jr. under the antitrust laws. His
widening monopoly of diplomatic
~ posts in the vari-
GUS countries has
First Multiple been still further
A-L-J., extended by the
Presidents NOM
nation of Mr.. Biddle as ambassador
to the exiled governments of Greece
and Jugoslavia. His other ambassa-
dorships include Poland, Belgium,
Norway and The Netherlands, and
he is minister to Czechoslovakia
and Luxembourg.
He seems to like his multiple
job, although it has caused him
much Inconvenience and cost
him q lot Of money. Senator
Guffey Of Pennsylvania recently
put in . bill to reimburse him
for S243,6 $40 worth of his furni-
ture, strewn over Europe in the
litter Of fallen thrones and do
minions. The senate postponed
action on the bill until after the
war, and Mr.. Biddle didn't seem
to mind. He gets SIT 500 q year
for eight jobs which at prevail.
ing rates would run up to about
$780, q year in salaries.
He got his start as a diplomat
with his appointment as minister to
Norway in 1885. Then came the
Polish ambassadorship and since
then he hasn't had much quiet home
life, bombed out of any comfortable
overnight stopping place. In Lon
don, he needed elbow-room, finding
embassy facilities limited for his
large-scale operations, and took a
spacious apartment at 40 Berkeley
square, where he and Mrs. Biddle
clear a prodigious amount of Euro
pean diplomatic wreckage. Mrs.
Biddle is the daughter of the late
William Boyce Thompson, Montana
mining magnate.
Mr.. Biddle frequently is confused
with his father, who once fought
Philadelphia Jack O'Brien and who,
at the age of 81, is now teaching jul
jitsu to soldiers. Like his father,
MIR. Biddle Jr.. is an athlete, at As,
and has hawklike features and a
long, sharp, shrewd friendly face.
The confusion is understandable.
Sitting out the relationships of Phila-
delphia Biddles is tricky business
f0r an apOoto,,r b,,@ A.. ~..x IL