Prince & Armour

During the French Revolution a memorable meeting of the Third Estate was held on a tennis court. In Chicago in the last six months two memorable meetings have been held in a gymnasium. The meeters have been the stockholders of Armour & Co. Last week in the big brick building which the late J. Ogden Armour built to make strong Armour meatmen stronger, the stockholders completed the revolution they began last autumn.

When President Lee called the meeting to order last week he knew exactly what was going to happen. After his own reorganization plan had been blocked by stockholders' committees (TIME, Sept. 11), he had been forced to consider the wishes of Frederick Henry Prince, 74-year-old Boston banker who had suddenly become one of Armour's largest stockholders. Crusty Banker Prince and President Lee had agreed on a board of di rectors, and between them they held nearly two-thirds of the proxies.

Apart from other stockholders sat Chase Ulman of St. Louis with S. Mayner Wallace, his lawyer, and a big black suitcase jammed with proxies for 300,000 shares. Mr. Ulman had fought President Lee's plans as bitterly as Banker Prince. Last week Mr. Ulman and Lawyer Wallace were added to the full Prince-Lee slate. While election tellers went through with the formality of counting the vote, a lawyer read a report from a stockholders' committee. Up jumped Mr. Ulman to accuse him of being a paid attorney, not a stockholder. His speech of denial was drowned in "Boooos." The stockholders then turned their attention to President Lee. They wanted to know all about salaries. President Lee promised to tell them individually if they would come to his office later. "Boooooo!" howled the stockholders. Someone attacked the management. "Boooo! Boooo!" Someone defended the management. "Boooo! Booo! Booo!" Finally one of the 250 stockholders yelled: "We want dough out of this company, not a lot of talk like this."

Thirteen old Armour directors were re-elected and eight new men added to the board. Four of the new directors represented the Prince interests--Elisha Walker of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., Lawyer Weymouth Kirkland, James A. McDonough and Banker Prince. Two represented Mr. Ulman--Mr. Ulman and his lawyer. The election of the other two marked the reentry of the Armours into Armour & Co. They were Lester Armour and his brother Philip Danforth III.

"P. D." III was 37 and first vice president when Thomas George Lee was made president of Armour & Co. in 1931. Vice President Armour thought he deserved the topnotch job. When the directors offered him an impotent vice-chairmanship, "P. D." III resigned in a huff. And for the first time since the Founding "P. D." went to Chicago shortly after the Civil War, Armour had no Armour executives. Two second cousins of "P. D." III and Lester stayed on as directors (and were re-elected last week) but the grandsons of "P. D.'' were out.

Last week after the second gymnasium meeting the Armour directors, new and old, lunched in the stockyards. Then they adjourned to Armour's downtown office to elect the real rulers of Armour's destinies --the finance committee. Banker Prince, as every one expected, got the chairmanship and two of the other six places. Also made a member was Philip Danforth Armour III.

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