1920
The 1920 spotlight is still focussed on Washington.
Craig Sheaffer is down there now, serving as Assistant Secretary of Commerce in charge of domestic affairs; and the voices would be few indeed that did not agree on the merits of this appointment. Craig is known far and wide for his sagacity in keeping his own inrial house in order. In the Long IslandPress (of all places!) there was a reminder a while back that he celebrated his 55th birthday last Christmas Day, and the paper saluted Craig as one who "has sponsored profit-sharing ideas, low employee turn-over and minimum strikes —one strike of three hours in 37 years." You see how he achieved it when YOU read from his letter addressed on January 26 "To All People of the W. A. Sheaffer Pen Company":
"I have devoted my life to this business and acquired much in the way of material reward and, above all, many invaluable friendships. I could not possibly choose to leave it for what I am going to do if my own personal comforts and desires were alone to be considered. I do it strictly with the hope of making an honest contribution, in whatever position I find myself, to good government."
The above is exactly in line with the word from young Walter Sheaffer, new president of the company, who wrote of his dad: He accepted the position with a great sense of humility, but he felt that it was necessary. After many years of 'constructive criticism he did not feel that he would be in a position to advise in the future if he did not accept the responsibility when it was offered to him.
THIRTY is commonly recognized as a practicing newspaperman's symbol for the end of his story. Appropriately, when Craig retired from the presidency of the Sheaffer Company, the directors voted a regular 30 quarterly dividend, a 30$ extra dividend, and a 30% bonus to all employees.
In the permanent civic life of the District of Columbia Dr. Marshy Marshall continues to play a prominent role. His new title is president of the Federation of Civic Associations, but this top honor climaxes a succession of many acquired over the years. Like his father, who practised medicine in Washington for 40 years, Marshy has carried on a general practice on P Street for 27 years, in the house next door to the one where his father's office was formerly located.
"The White House atmosphere is changing," said Washington correspondent Robert J. Donovan of the New York Herald-Tribune in a Sunday feature story on February 1:
"For the working staff, the day is longer. (It begins at 8:30.) The staff conference is now conducted by Sherman Adams, assistant to the President, the hard-working, hard-driving, brisk, efficient former Governor of New Hampshire, who came to the White House by way of his role as chief of staff in the Eisenhower campaign.
"Outside the President himself, no man in recent years - certainly no one in the Truman Administration - has exercised the managerial direction of the White House staff that Mr. Adams already has assumed. As was predicted, it has given greater stature to the office of assistant to the President."
The Alsop Brothers seconded this motion in their syndicated column on February 9, when they referred to Sherm again as the key man on the Eisenhower staff. "But," said they, "Adams sees his job as insuring that the President makes the decisions he must make, rather than influencing the nature of these decisions."
Reversing the Twenty Trend, Sam Stratton came promptly back out of government service at the end of his year's leave of absence from the presidency of Middlebury College. Sam, be it remembered, was Director of Technical Cooperation Administration for Saudi Arabia and the Yemen* (scurry for the atlases, boys, and dig out that last one). He came back to Middlebury just ten years after he had assumed the office of president of the college, and he wrote, "I will still take a beautiful New England college town on a winter's morning with the snow on the mountains and good skating ice on the ponds." Perhaps because Middlebury had a colder winter than Hanover, Sam also came back to skiing successes over his own alma mater in the Middlebury Winter Carnival. But at least the Vermonters had the good sense to elect the late Bob Strong's daughter Betsy as their Carnival Queen.
Writing home some months ago Sam had these things to say:
"Living in this ancient yet in some ways modern city is an extraordinarily interesting experience for us. Jidda, the old city, is Arabia pre-oil. It is a city of narrow, winding, dusty streets crowded •with 1001 strange sights - veiled women, Arabs in their typical costumes, Sudanese, servants and slaves, donkeys hauling water carts, camels led by Bedouins.
"On the outskirts is the growing American quarter where we live in a hotel which was once the palatial home of the finance minister and his three wives. We occupy the villa of wife number three. It has air-conditioning which we appreciate very much, but it still falls short of the accommodations at the Middlebury Inn. My office is across the street in a pre-fab building.
"We have recently persuaded the government to establish a Monetary Agency - in other words a national bank. The Moslem religion forbids calling it a bank for that would imply charging interest. We have also, I hope, been instrumental in the formulation of the new Saudi Arabian budget for next year. Perhaps it will be difficult for You to believe that this government previously has had nothing that one could call a budget.
"We are now hopeful of initiating programs for Public Health and Education. This will take doing for education is tied up with the Koran, and public health is limited to activities which would not include women nurses. (It is difficult for heavily veiled women to perform the functions of nurses.)"
Ted Weis is middleman in conveying the word of the travels contemplated this year for the Leo Ungars. Leo, a restless fellow, gets a new reason for travel about this time every year; and this time it is his presidency of the Council Bluffs Rotary Club which sends him sailing, as a delegate, for a month in Paris and other European ports of call. The Ungars plan to take off on April 28. The eagle-eyed Weis-man, by the way, spotted a UP item in the feature section of the Toledo Blade, remarking that George U. L. Leavitt, 88, has entered upon his 55th successive one-year term as deputy sheriff of Lebanon, N. H. His name is still familiar, doubtless to many a rakish Twenty.
The Eastern Underwriter of New York started the New Year right with a respectful story about the appointment of Keane & Warner, Inc., as accident and health general agency for the Aetna Insurance Group. The rapidly-growing agency, which Rube Warner helped to found five years ago, today writes an annual volume running well up into the hundred thousands. "Mr. Warner," says this story about him, "spent 12 years as a representative for the Guardian Life Insurance Cos. In 1940 he was second highest in the country in the volume of paid-for-business and a member of the President and Leader's Clubs."
Les Willard, of Manning, Maxwell, Moore, Inc., heads the Industrial Employes Division of this year's Red Cross fund campaign in Stratford, Conn Gerry Morse has been identified with the Celanese Corporation for a year or more. .. . Phil Gross, minus an appendix which was removed on February 1, caught up with Grover Plowman at a recent Traffic Club luncheon in Pittsburgh Currently serving as directors of savings banks in Greater Boston: Mugs Morrill, the Charlestown Five Cent Bank; Roc Elliott, Arlington Five Cent Savings Bank; Phibby Bennett and Red Tillson, the Home Savings Bank. Red has just bought a beautiful old colonial home - an estate, no less - in Bedford, Mass.
Stan Newcomer, sojourning in California, is getting himself tanned and rugged this month for the hardest year of his career. Anyone with a drop of the milk of human kindness in his system will surely extend sympathy, respect and cooperation to the Class Agent for 1920. Starting his tour of duty efficiently, Stan has appointed a corps of 28 assistant agents, many of them new to their jobs but eager to learn, located all over the premises from San Francisco to Rutland, Vt. See Al Foley's green sheets for further details!
IN WASHINGTON: Craig Sheaffer '2O, who has left his position as president of the Sheaffer Pen Company to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce in charge of domestic affairs. He is a member of 1920's executive committee. It is not hard to guess the make of the pen set in the foreground.
Secretary, Blind Brook Lodge, Rye 17, N. Y.
Class Agent, 438 E. Elm Ave., Monroe, Mich.
