Disappointment

Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ford sailed from Manhattan, last week, on the Majestic (once the German liner Bismarck) on which they occupied the Imperial Suite originally designed for All Highest Wilhelm II.

Europeans were expectant. For Henry Ford is a best seller everywhere upon the Continent. His works and his methods are studied and aped--especially in Germany and Soviet Russia--with the belief that they will prove the industrial salvation of those countries.*

Therefore Mr. Ford caused deep disappointment in Europe last week, when he declared that he will not set foot upon the Continent itself but will spend a month in England, Scotland and Ireland, visiting his factories at London, Glasgow and Cork. Pinioned by reporters, he admitted that his plants now produce daily 1700 automobiles and 1 1/2 airplanes. Said he, "This year will be the greatest the automotive industry has ever known."

When large purchases of the common stock of Harry F. Sinclair's Consolidated Oil Corp. were made in Manhattan, last week, by an undetected buyer this person was rumored to be Motor Man Ford. Before the Majestic sailed, however, Mr. Ford declared unequivocally, "I do not plan to purchase any new industries or purchase any more motor car companies in the near future. My hands are pretty full."

"What an Ad!"

Booth Tarkington published a novel last year called The Plutocrat. The hero was Earl Tinker, U. S. captain of industry. Mr. Tinker's fictitious shipmates on a Mediterranean cruise included James T. Weatheright of Weatheright's Worsteds; T. H. Smith, president of the G. L. and W.; Thomas Swingey of Swingey Brothers, Inc.; Harold M. Wilson, ex-chairman of the Board of the Western Industrial Corp., etc., etc. "You almost wonder," said Earl Tinker, "how the United States can go on running with these men out here on the ocean!"

Many people thought Author Tarkington was exaggeratedly ironic when he made Mr. Tinker cry, "What an ad!" upon seeing the Rock of Gibraltar; when he made Mr. Tinker cry out upon the sewers of Algiers and say: "Why, the United States Army ought to come over here and clean it up!" Mr. Tinker boasted how much finer his home town was than oldtime Timgad. Mr. Tinker rode through Africa on a camel, like a barbaric Roman potentate, "raining money like some great careless thundercloud charged with silver and gold and pouring them down."

Last week, the ship-news reporter of the New York Times, went down New York Bay, boarded the incoming S. S. Majestic, examined the passenger list, sought interviews. Joseph Paul Day, Manhattan realtor, "who has auctioned off more than a billion dollars worth of real estate during his career," was the hero of the article the newsgatherer subsequently wrote. "Among his fellow passengers were H. E. Mansville of Johns-Mansville, Inc., W. R. Timken of the Timken Roller Bearing Co. and Bowman Gray of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co."

Relating the travels of these gentlemen, the article said: "When they reached the island of Madeira they were so impressed by its beauty that they jokingly discussed the idea of purchasing the island to 'develop' it. They finally abandoned the idea as the proposition 'lacked volume.' There was not enough area, Mr. Day said, to make the undertaking worth while."

Mr. Day said that castles in Spain might make good poetry but were not good as realty propositions. Mr. Day said Italy impressed him. It had New York's bustle and energy. Mr. Day said: "I am almost inclined to believe that if she continues she may even develop a species of real estate man."

Mr. Day said: "An American business man abroad should have a manager. In America he is so busy that when he gets abroad he does not know what to do with his time, and in consequence can be easily buncoed. Mrs. Day was my manager, and she must have saved me at least $50,000 by keeping me from buying what I wanted to buy."

"The Bigger the Better"

The Duke & Duchess of Atholl, a vastly rich couple of many unique distinctions, arrived at Manhattan, last week from Jamaica, where they had gone from England to visit their great Jamaican sugar plantations.

His Grace of Atholl, John George Stewart Murray, 56, is once a Duke, twice a Marquess, five times an Earl, three times a Viscount, and Lord High Commissioner to the Church of Scotland. Furthermore: i) He is the only Briton entitled to keep a personal standing army, a force of 1,000 Murray clansmen duly authorized by the late Queen-Empress Victoria; 2) Although he dwells at excessively ancestral Blair Castle, Perthshire, he is an extremely modern exponent and developer of small, cheap, steel houses 'for British workmen; 3) Although the major portion of his life has been spent? as a man of the sword, and although he was a Brigadier General during the World War, he said pacifically last week:

"We don't care how large a navy the United States has. The bigger it is, the better for us."

Her Grace, Katherine Marjory, Duchess of Atholl, is a Conservative M. P. and has been, since 1924, Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Education. As such, the first sightseeing which she did in Manhattan, last week, was to inspect Teachers' College at Columbia University and the Manhattan Trade School for Girls. This act, typical, recalled that for almost three decades Her Grace has tirelessly founded or fostered charities, nursing homes, schools, and welfare associations of all ilks. Most characteristically the Duke and Duchess slept, last week, not at the peerless Hotel Ritz-Carlton, but at the convenient Biltmore, close to trains, subways and pedestrian tunnels.

-Few except fellow citizens of Mr. Ford continue to gibe at the "Peace Ship," on which he made his last transatlantic voyage,--sailing from Manhattan on Dec. 4, 1915, to stop the World War before Christmas.