Son of an Amazon

Last week, there slipped into Man hattan an unostentatious man, one Marshall, a private secretary. He was cornered by newspaper reporters. "What is your employer doing?" they asked.

Reluctantly, he admitted a few facts. His employer had spent $500,000 constructing a private radio broadcasting station on his estate. According to reports from England, his employer's radio programs were better heard across the Atlantic than those of any other radio station. What else was his employer doing? Well, he had a special telescopic photographic apparatus from Germany with which he was able to take photographs of ships far out at sea with as much detail as if they had been close to land. Anything in the line of radio? Well, his employer had constructed a $200,000 laboratory to experiment in transmitting motion pictures by radio. Any success ? It was a little early to say. He had succeeded in transmitting moving pictures by radio for a distance of 60 ft. Of course, it must not be taken as a prophecy. Dr. Samuel W. Stratton, President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was cooperating and sending down experts to assist in the experiments. If progress went on as it had begun, motion pictures by radio might possibly be achieved in a year.

The reporters rushed away to their city editors. Movies by radio had been talked of 'before but no startling successes had been achieved in that direction. The interest of the story hung entirely on the employer of the private secretary. Who was he?

He was Colonel E. H. R. Green, W. M. A. F. The letters after his name are not a royal distinction. They are the signature of his radio broadcasting station. And who is Colonel Green? He is the only son of the late Hetty Green.

And Hetty Green? She was reputed to be the richest woman in the U. S., called the "Amazon of Finance," called (25 years ago) one of the four most discussed women in America. (The other three were Mrs. Astor, Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont.) Her father, Edward Mott Robinson, came from a long line of wealthy people. He told her not only to conserve, but to add to his millions. At eight, she opened her first bank account. When she was a debutante (before the Civil

War), he gave her a check for $1,200 to buy dresses in Manhattan. She saved $1,000 of it. Dress was not one of her luxuries. She would walk aristocratically into a distinguished hotel wearing a rusty gown, pinned up the back, shabby, "at the elbows." She was an aristocrat, but chiefly in manner. She did not speculate with her wealth, but invested in railroads, in Standard Oil. She was of Quaker stock, which may explain her frugality, but she turned Episcopalian. She married Edward H. Green. She replied to Suffragists who requested her aid: "I do not approve of Suffrage. A woman's place is in her home, taking care of her husband and children. I took care of my husband and his stomach; and he lived to be 83." She gave freely to schools and took low-interest mortgages on churches. She herself lived to be 81 and died in 1916. Her daughter married Matthew Astor Wilks, a great-great-grandson of John Jacob Astor. Her son, Edward Howland Robinson Green, was born in 1868, in Langham, London, while the Greens were touring abroad. When he was 21, she gave him a million--fearing to give him more lest he marry an actress. As a matter of fact, he did not marry until he was 49, after his mother's death, and then he did not marry an actress. He has no children. He was graduated from Fordham College at 20. His first job was as section hand on a railroad. Later he became superintendent and managing director of the O. & M. R. R. He now owns the Texas & Midland. He got his title of Colonel as did Colonel House, from an appointment to the staff of the Governor of Texas. Now he is retired. He lives jovially on his 300-acre estate, Round Hills, at South Dartmouth, Mass., said to be worth three million dollars. He inherited $175,000,000 from his mother. His income from her estate, aside from his own properties, is reported as one million a year. He has lost one leg; the other is slightly rheumatic--so he rides about on the seven miles of paved roads on his estate in a small electric car. He keeps 300 employes and has 32 resi dences for them. On his estate is a swimming pool, oil heated for cold weather. His hobbies are radio and color photography; and he conducts his radio station and his laboratories on his estate. A millionaire, perhaps, but also an experimenter and a major patron of Science. Movies by radio? Perhaps. At any rate, money won't stand in the way.