Steel-Sired Diplomat

In Pittsburgh the name of Laughlin has a potency approaching that of Carnegie, Frick, Mellon. Pittsburgh's steel-minded burghers do homage to the firm name: Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. Last week, on recommendation of Pennsylvania's Senator Reed. President Hoover appointed bald, courtly Irwin Boyle Laughlin, long-time diplomat, as Ambassador to Spain.

After his graduation from Yale, Irwin Laughlin took a lowly job in the ancestral steel corporation. Ten years later he resigned as secretary of the company to embrace a diplomatic career. One of the wealthiest of the necessarily moneyed diplomatic corps, he began as a humble secretary, advanced by ability as much as influence. During his 23-year diplomatic ascendancy he served in Athens, Tokyo, Peking, Bangkok, St. Petersburg, London, Berlin. Golf he plays, but prefers to collect art, read, dine elegantly. Since his retirement from the diplomatic service in 1926 he has lived in a big stone house in Washington, which he has adorned with old French stone carvings under the eaves, a formal French garden. Close friends are Art Lovers Laughlin and Secretary of the Treasury Mellon.

When Walter Hines Page was ambassador to the Court of St. James's, he told President Wilson, in recommending his then secretary for ministerhood: "I depend on him [Laughlin] more than all the rest of my staff together. I can hardly imagine a more careful or conscientious man." While Secretary of Commerce, President Hoover was impressed by Laughlin's ability when, as minister at Athens, he aided U. S. corporations in securing a munificent contract for waterworks construction. A man of affairs with long foreign experience, he precisely fits the Hoover pattern for diplomats.