Stettinius

Born at St. Louis, moulded by business (chief of a boiler factory and of the famed Diamond Match Co.) for a great purpose, Edward R. Stettinius died last week at his Long Island home.

In the summer of 1915--the Allied lines being within 100 miles of Paris as a result of the slaughter on the Somme--the late Henry P. Davison returned from Europe. To his partners of the firm of J. P. Morgan & Co., No. 23 Wall St., he presented a contract from the Allied Governments commissioning the house of Morgan to act as their purchasing agents in the U. S.

A few days later the third floor of No. 23 Wall St. was converted into an expert department, Edward R. Stettinius commanding. For the next three years Mr. Stettinius conducted the most magnificent shopping campaign in the world's history. He put food, clothes, guns, explosives where the Allies put soldiers. He put them there good enough, cheap enough, soon enough, to win the War. In Parliament, in la Chambre, orators rose to thank him. Thus was Stettinius a world-name. Said Viscount Northcliffe: "He was easily the ablest business organizer in the ranks of the Allies or of the Enemy."

While the U. S. was in the War Mr. Stettinius served in the Government, nominally under Secretary of War Baker. In January, 1919, having survived the strain of war, he returned to J. P. Morgan & Co., to which firm he had been admitted partner in January, 1916. To him were given a few years of the intense activity characteristic of Morgan partners. General Motors, Guaranty Trust Co., General Electric Co., and many another great business took toll of Stettinius' energy until finally in March 1923, he became an invalid. This summer he went for a cruise on J. P. Morman's Corsair. His health seemed to improve; but after his return to his Long Island home, it failed rapidly. Like other Morgan partners, he had compacted into a brief period many spans of three score years and ten. He was aged 60.