Prince in Armour

Frederick Henry Prince is generally regarded as New England's richest citizen and Boston's crustiest celebrity. Hard-bitten son of a Democratic Boston mayor, he quit Harvard to enter the brokerage business, married the daughter of a wealthy waterworks builder, quickly became one of State Street's most spectacular figures. His firm of F. H. Prince &; Co. installed the first stockticker in Boston. In the 1890's he developed Chicago Junction Railway, which he later leased for 99 years to New York Central for an annual rental of $2,000,000. and bought up Chicago Union Stock Yards. He had a hand in building up Bessemer &; Lake Erie, which was sold to U. S. Steel Corp. At one time or another he has owned some 46 carriers including Ann Harbor, Pere Marquette. Denver &; Salt Lake. His son Norman helped found the Wartime Lafayette Escadrille, was killed in France in 1916. Mr. &; Mrs. Prince gave $200,000 to the Washington National Cathedral for a memorial chapel where their son's body now lies (TIME, April 29, 1929). Frederick Henry Prince at 74 is stocky, white-thatched and still vigorous enough to play a hard game of polo on his 1,000-acre estate near smart Prides Crossing. Since the Depression he has emerged from "Princemere" (where champagne is always served for lunch, tea and dinner), to buy at bargain levels the big yacht Weetamoe and Mrs. Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont's $2,000,000 "Marble Palace" at Newport, and to sponsor the famed Prince plan for consolidating all U. S. railroads into seven systems. His favorite occasion for making news is on returning from his Paris home or his estate in Pau where he is still Master of Fox Hounds. Early this year he gave ship reporters a blast on professors-in-Government (TIME, Feb. 13) that brought a blizzard of pedagogical protest. Last week on landing in New York aboard the Europa he triumphantly confirmed reports that he had bought a "substantial" interest in the great packing house of Armour &; Co. Asked how much, he curtly retorted: "It was enough to give me a hold on the company." Frederick Henry Prince has a reputation for remembering his enemies.* Armour &; Co. has been a Prince enemy of long standing. Chicago last week recalled an old story that the late J. Ogden Armour had once bought secretly in Mr. Prince's stockyards. That was enough to pique Mr. Prince but Mr. Armour had then loudly (and quite truthfully) denied that his packing company owned a share in any stockyard. Then a small packer had challenged the legality of a yardage charge of 12-c- a head on hogs, 25-c- a head on cattle, which the stockyards collected even on railroad shipments direct to the packers, and had won his point. Mr. Prince thought he saw the day when the railroads would pass the charge to him or at least force a reduction. And Mr. Prince was sure he had seen the shrewd hand of Armour behind the little packer's action. Mr. Prince saw his opportunity to even the score last July. Armour President Thomas George Lee and his board proposed a capital reorganization to enable the company to pay off $10,000,000 in back dividends on preferred stock and to write-down property so that depreciation charges could be reduced, perhaps common dividends paid (TIME. Sept. 11). So loud and so forceful was stockholder opposition that the management was forced to drop the whole plan. No one seriously denied that Armour's capitalization needed readjustment but the terms of the plan were considered unfair. The loudest and most forceful objection, along with embarrassing questions on salaries, came from a committee backed by Banker Prince. The outcome of this preliminary tilt with the Armour management encouraged Mr. Prince to press his advantage. He had plenty of cash. Armour stock was cheap (average price $3). Banker Prince did not stop buying until he was the largest single stockholder. But in a $350,000,000 company like Armour with 80,000 stock holders that did not mean Prince control or anything like it. Chicago placed his Armour holdings at about 35% interest. The important thing was that the Armour management ran up a white flag and agreed to let Mr. Prince have a big. if not dominant, voice at Armour's council tables. When the next reorganization plan is brought forth, the Boston banker presumably will be not only its stoutest advocate but perhaps its single-handed author.

Last week Mr. Prince hurried to Chicago to make his big voice heard. But there was a possibility that the Federal Government might also have something to say. The packers are still operating under their famed anti-trust consent decree (1920), by which they are forbidden to hold shares in stockyards. What the Government's attitude will be toward a stock-yarder who buys into a packing house no one knows. When newshawks asked him to speculate out loud on the effects of the consent decree on his plans. Mr. Prince snorted: "That has nothing to do with the matter."

*At least one of his enemies remembered Mr. Prince. Last winter Arthur Mason, 63-year-old horse trainer, sued polo-playing Mr. Prince for $50,000. The charge: after a polo game at the famed Myopia Hunt Club in 1929 the old banker, cursing, had whacked Trainer Mason behind the ears with a mallet.

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