Mail Order Men

For months Chicago's LaSalle Street has buzzed with rumors that stormy, exuberant General Robert Elkington Wood was about to resign as president of Sears, Roebuck & Co. and campaign for public office, possibly the Presidency of the U. S. Sears has a rule that executives must retire at 60; the rambunctious General is 59 and no man to twiddle his thumbs.

Last week, not General Wood, but wan, diffident Board Chairman Lessing Julius Rosenwald resigned. At 47 he retired to his philanthropies and etchings. Sears' directors promptly upped General Wood to the chairmanship, a post to which the retirement rule does not apply.

Having marched Sears stores into 45 States and raised annual net sales from $319,000,000 to $537,000,000 in eleven years, General Wood is not likely to confine his generalship to board meetings. To succeed him the directors picked a man who can get along with the General (who chews up cigarets when he is mad). New President Thomas Joseph Carney is a company man, in 37 years has served under every Sears president. Born in 1886, same year as the company, he went to work at 16 as a shipping clerk. Later he managed the Philadelphia store, rose to be vice president in charge of operations under the excitable General (who eats caramels in their wrappers).

Though Sears will be without a Rosenwald at its head for the first time in 39 years, it will have one on its board. Julius Rosenwald 2nd will be one of three new directors to attend the General's first meeting, which he may begin (as he does his meals and conferences) by barking out: "Let's charge!"

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