Doherty Week

Oilman Henry Latham Doherty, like many another tycoon, finds it pleasant to bask his frail body in the warm Florida sunshine. But Florida no longer represents just rest to Mr. Doherty. For 15 months he has owned the big Miami Biltmore

Hotel at Coral Gables and has bathed it in the same sort of publicity which enabled one-man Henry L. Doherty & Co. to sell Cities Service securities to half a million people. From Manhattan the Florida Year-Round Club's special train runs weekly to the hotel with an orchestra, a gymnasium, a miniature pool for pretty girls in bathing suits, a hostess, a bridge professional. Some sport event is scheduled for almost every day of the season. Fortnight ago Oilman Doherty watched the best girl swimmers of the land. Last week he was official host to the 78 entrants in the Miami Air Meet (see p. 24). He makes a point of entertaining potent people. At his New Year's Eve party he put on a paper cap and made much noise for his guests, Secretary & Mrs. Ray Lyman Wilbur. Last week Rear Admiral & Mrs. William Adger Moffett visited the Dohertys. If he had his way the "Winter Capital" would be Miami, not Washington or Warm Springs, and the Miami Biltmore would be the winter Mayflower.

Oilman Doherty has, of course, not forgotten his billion-dollar Cities Service Co.. in which he owns one-third voting power. He is conscious of even such small details as the news last week that his experimental Surface Combustion plant in Toledo has perfected a new gas furnace which may revolutionize glassmaking. And he beamed last week when he was handed a telegram bearing glad tidings from the West.

For many years Kansas has been the most troublesome province in the Doherty empire. Year ago a utilities battle-of-the-century loomed when the Kansas Public Service Commission ordered the Doherty pipe-line companies to lower their rates on gas from 40-c- per 1,000 cu. ft. to 30-c- and Governor Harry Woodring forbade the sale of Cities Service securities in Kansas.

An injunction was obtained against the securities order. The rate controversy went before a three-judge Federal Court. Last week the court gave a 2-to-1 ruling that the Public Service Commission has the right to fix rates--but that the 30-c- rate was confiscatorv. It also set the assets of the companies involved midway between the Doherty figure of $93,000,000 and the Commission figure of $73,000,000. It upheld the right of Henry L. Doherty & Co. to charge management fees (of prime importance to all utility pyramids) but said that the fees would have to be set forth in full detail. It declared an 8% return on the pipeline properties would not be too high.

Because the fight was chiefly Governor Woodring's and he was leaving office last week, few people thought the decision would be appealed. The Doherty companies regarded the verdict as a complete victory and their bearded chief and Mrs. Doherty went off on a trip through central Florida with Carl Byoir, his able publicist. Still awaiting trial is Mr. Doherty's answer to his severest critic: a $12,000,000 libel suit against the Kansas City Star.

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