Old Mormon Custom

Eastern editors were mildly startled last week when they received a dispatch from Ogden, Utah, announcing the election of Marriner Stoddard Eccles as president of Amalgamated Sugar Co. Equally surprised were they to discover that all along he had been Amalgamated's vice president and treasurer. Remembering that the Secretary of the Treasury is not allowed to have a financial interest in trade, commerce or ships, reporters scurried to Senator Carter Glass to ask whether it was all right for the Chairman of the Reserve System actually to head an industrial corporation. The crusty Virginian, who disparaged Mr. Eccles' nomination to the Reserve Board, refused any comment, pointed dryly to the Federal Reserve Act which says merely "The members of the Board shall devote their entire time to the business of the Board and shall each receive an annual salary of $15,000. . . ." Presumably since joining the Federal Reserve, Mr. Eccles had given no time to his job as an officer of Amalgamated.

No credit to the financial knowledge of Eastern editors was their astonishment. Marriner Eccles was altogether too big a financial and industrial figure in the West to step completely out of its business scene when he moved to Washington. He not only had to run Eccles Investment Co., which manages the family fortune, but also the family's large Stoddard Lumber Co., First Security Corp. which owns 26 banks in Utah and Idaho, one in Wyoming, Sego Milk Products (now a subsidiary of Pet), Utah Construction Co. (one of Six Companies, Inc. which helped build Boulder Dam) and several lesser concerns.

Amalgamated Sugar, of which Marriner Eccles has been an officer since 1921, is one of the two great Mormon sugar companies. In 1929 it lost its independent status when the (gentile) American Beet Sugar Co. (now American Crystal Sugar Co.) acquired 99% of its common stock. Like all beet sugar companies Amalgamated had a terrible Depression. It piled up a cumulative operating deficit of $3735,000 (since reduced nearlyone-third) which made it impossible under Utah law for it to pay any dividends. American faced the prospect of not getting any return on its investment for perhaps ten years. Therefore last spring it made a trade: it gave its holdings of Amalgamated stock plus $270,000 in cash to Amalgamated in exchange for two of Amalgamated's refineries, one at Missoula, Mont., another at Clarksburg, Calif.

Marriner Eccles' elevation last week was therefore in the nature of a celebration of Amalgamated's new independence. Moreover, it was quite in accord with old Mormon custom. The other Mormon sugar company, Utah-Idaho, has for its president Heber Jeddy Grant, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of _Latter Day Saints, who does not neglect his spiritual duties for sugar. It has been managed for many years by Vice President Willard T. Cannon. Similarly Henry Arthur Benning, vice president & general manager, runs Amalgamated, although its President Anthony W. Ivins was long another Mormon Church official. Inasmuch as Mr. Ivins died two years ago and Amalgamated had no president at all until last week's election, the company will probably not feel neglected if Marriner Eccles obeys the Federal Revenue law, gives his entire time to his duties in Washington.

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