Gold Hunt

Two facts: Attorney General Cummings is still holding before the noses of his sleuths a list of U. S. gold in private hands --still urging them to go fetch it. Recently Dr. Arthur Stone Dewing, able professor of finance in the Harvard School of Business, resigned. Last week the quidnuncs of Cambridge, Mass, had the satisfaction of coupling the Government's gold chase with the professor's resignation.

Dr. Dewing, 53, Bostonian born, was long a noted figure at Harvard, no less for his trenchant teachings than for his handsome beard--which has never been shaved, which once, on shipboard, caused him to be mistaken for a Maharaja. No mere academician is he. Ten or 15 years ago he began buying up small New England utility companies that were not doing too well. Turning precept to example, he put them on a profitable basis. While Insull interests and New England Power Co. were struggling for control of New England utilities, he more than held his own, adding to his reputation in business as well as pedagogy. He has heartily condemned the "managed industry" policy of the Roosevelt Administration, has championed laissez-faire.

Last winter it was said in Cambridge that Dr. Dewing had gone into the Harvard Trust Co. and taken out $30,000 in gold. When the bank holiday followed, his reputation for astuteness was advanced. Later the students and faculty of the Business School were given to understand that Dr. Dewing had been given leave of absence to complete a great opus on corporation finance.When he resigned, Cambridge whispered that he had been fired for the heinous sin of gold hoarding.

Last week the story of Dr. Dewing's resignation broke through the screen of rumor. He had withdrawn gold before the bank holiday, not for his personal account, but as president of Chatham Water Co., to protect a construction contract which the company had undertaken. He redeposited the gold immediately after the bank holiday ended. Dean Wallace Brett Donham of the Business School criticized his act as having made the School subject to possible public criticism, objected to his criticisms of Administration policies. Hence Dr. Dewing's resignation. Since Dr. Dewing was guilty of no lawless hoarding, some alumni of the Business School were eager to raise the issue of academic freedom on behalf of their able ex-teacher.

Though Dr. Dewing did not concern them, Federal sleuths were still scurrying around last week, trying to find $600,000,000 worth of gold, asking the list of holders: "What did you do with the gold you withdrew?"

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