Erratum

Vexed last week was upright Winthrop Williams Aldrich, brother-in-law of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and president of Chase National Bank (world's largest). And with good cause. Banker Aldrich had read in TIME, May 15: ". . . Of Chase's $30,000,000 first loan [to Cuba], $2,000,000 went into commissions--$500,000 to 'Wood Louse' Obregon" (Jose Emilio Obregon, son-in-law of Cuba's President Machado).

TIME erred badly, and herewith gladly sets the record straight. As brought out convincingly before a committee of the U. S. Senate in January 1932 by the Chase Bank's Vice President Carl J. Schmidlapp, the facts are these:

1) The $2,000,000 commissions covered loans, over a period of years, aggregating $80,000,000.

2) The $500,000 commission was paid by Cuba to Senor Obregon not as an individual but as the Chase's Havana manager. After deducting expenses, including legal fees of $58,055.07 for Cuban lawyers (Antonio de Bustamente, Hernandez Cartaya, Garcia Montes) the balance of the commission, some $375,000, was distributed among the original underwriters of the loan: Chase National Bank, Chase Securities Corp., Blair & Co. Inc., Equitable Trust Co., Continental Bank of Chicago.

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