Sitting Bull

The late great George Fisher Baker's advice on how to get rich was to buy leading U. S. common stocks ''and sit on them." Mr. Baker followed his own advice, became rich. When the U. S. Comptroller 25 years ago told Mr. Baker that his omnipotent First National Bank could no longer sit on common stocks, he organized one of the first bank affiliates, to sit for him. It is well known that First Security Co. is a big holder of common stocks, that it has contributed generously to First National's fat annual dividend of $100 a share. So well and so long did the bank and its affiliate sit that in 1920 Mr. Baker's (and his son's) holdings of First National shares had a market value of more than $150,000,000.

But a year ago stockholders learned that bullish First Security had sat too long. President Jackson Eli Reynolds announced that First Securities owed $6,000.000 more than the total market value of its investments. And last week he stated that this deficit had increased to $11.750.000, that the directors intended to liquidate the loans as soon as First Security's holdings recover sufficiently in price. First ] National Bank stock (100,000 shares outstanding) promptly dropped $50 a share to $1.470.

Wall Street has heard for some time that First Security's directors--John P. Morgan, Thomas W. Lament, Myron C. Taylor, Walter S. Gifford, Arthur Curtiss James. Harold S. Vanderbilt--stand ready to bolster the company if creditors grow impatient.

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