Flights & Flyers

"Safe, Gemmie." On June 14 Pilot Jimmie Mattern, flying around the world, took off from Khabarovsk, Southeastern Siberia, for Nome (TIME, June 19). He never arrived. For 23 days no word was heard of him. Last week Mattern's backers in Chicago received an electrifying radiogram from Anadir, trading post on the bleak peninsula which forms the northeasternmost tip of Siberia. It read: "Safe . . . Gemmie." Further despatches indicated that Mattern had made a forced landing 50 mi. from there, damaging his plane Century of Progress; had subsisted for days on game shot with a rifle given him by admiring Russian aviators at Khabarovsk.

The Lindberghs, Charles Augustus & Anne, took off from New York in their Lockheed monoplane for a two-month tour of the Labrador-Greenland-Iceland air route now being traversed by Balbo's Italian armada. The project is sponsored by Pan American Airways, of which Col. Lindbergh is technical adviser. From New York, where their plane was nearly fouled in mid-air by flying news photographers, the Lindberghs skirted the coast to North Haven, Me., there briefly visited their infant son Jon at the Morrow summer estate.

"We Do Our Part"

The name of Moffett is deeply imbedded in the history of Standard Oil. James A. Moffett was a colleague of Pratt, Flagler, Archbold, Bostwick, Rogers, Bedford-- shrewd men whose strength was as the strength of ten regardless of the purity of their hearts. Moffett served Standard Oil for 43 years. He was one of the lieutenants to whom John D. Rockefeller Sr. delegated the job of working out the great dissolution. He became president of Standard Oil of Indiana. And when he died in 1913 he left a son of his own name, already climbing the ladder of Standard Oil.* Last week the second James A. Moffett, vice president of Standard Oil of New Jersey at a salary supposed to be $100,000 a year, having served the company for 28 years, got out--for a reason: the New Deal.

Walter C. Teagle, president of Standard Oil of New Jersey, had been named a member of the advisory committee of nine chosen to aid Recovery Administrator Johnson. Last week Mr. Moffett was offered a place on the same committee. He wanted to take it. Mr. Teagle wanted him to refuse. Mr. Moffett's argument: the offered appointment was virtually a command from the President which it would be lese majeste to decline. Mr. Teagle's argument: two Standard Oil men on one committee would be too many. Meeting one morning in the Carlton Hotel in Washington Mr. Teagle put to Mr. Moffett an ultimatum: refuse the appointment or quit Standard Oil.

Thus Standard Oil is without a Moffett for the first time in more than half a century. Cause of the break as oil men knew was far deeper than the reasons given. Mr. Moffett, friend of Franklin Roosevelt since Wartime days, a stanch supporter of his for the presidency and in the New Deal, has urged the Administration to take a hand in the oil industry, force upon it a code with teeth to regulate prices and production. On this point he has been long at odds with Mr. Teagle and Standard's Chairman W. S. Parish (he first submitted his resignation to them early in June). To this he referred last week saying, "My views as to the policies to be pursued apparently are not in accord with those of the New Jersey company."

To counteract this impression Mr. Teagle published a statement:

". . . For more than a year now I have been engaged in an attempt to persuade employers that we must do our part in spreading employment. ... It seems to me that it behooves every company to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to bring about the success of the National Recovery Plan. This has been and always will be the spirit of the Standard Oil Company (New Jersey)."

The spirit of Standard Oil does not, however, require the company to approve of any and all measures that General Johnson wants to take. Obvious reason for the appointment of Mr. Moffett was that General Johnson prefers his advice to the advice of Mr. Teagle who has less drastic ideas about an oil code. The industry last week expected Mr. Moffett to be made General Johnson's right-hand enforcer of the code when adopted. Meantime the acceptance of Mr. Moffett's resignation shows that businessmen, however much they approve industrial re covery, are no reckless rooters for all measures proposed--are capable of opposition.

There was other evidence last week that business, kindly as it felt towards the Administration's recovery efforts, loud as it was in declaring so, inevitably had other interests at heart. Hardly a businessman in the whole U. S. but has taken forehanded measures tending to nullify the recovery program temporarily: has bought supplies or manufactured goods for future use before the new codes and higher prices go into effect. Obvious result is to lessen the amount of employment that will be available after wages are raised, hours shortened. In the oil industry many a company has stored cheap oil, but oil is not a prime example. Last week, the second in which the cotton textile code was in effect, the number of bales of cotton shipped to cotton mills dropped abruptly from 312.000 to 243.000--lowest level since early May--showing how activity has slackened now that it is too late to beat the code. Although the steel code is not yet in effect there were indications that businessmen had about finished stocking up on steel: the steady three-month climb of steel production had tapered off. Operations fell from a peak of 59% of capacity three weeks ago to 57%.

*Another son, George M. Moffett, followed his father's colleague, bewhiskered E. T. Bedford who quit Standard Oil, founded Corn Products, ruled it Standard Oil fashion until he died in 1931. Today George M. Moffett is president of Corn Products.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.