Happy Hotchkiss

A most fortunate old gentleman is tall, chin-whiskered Laurence Vincent ("Larry") Benet. Son of a brigadier general with the Union Army in the Civil War, he was born at West Point 71 years ago and schooled at Washington's famed old Emerson Institute and at Yale. In 1885 he went to Paris as a bright young engineer with La Societe Hotchkiss & Cie and has lived there ever since. His gracious wife Margaret was one of the Cox sisters of old Georgetown; Larry Benet married her after he returned as an ensign from the Spanish-American War. Best known of his family are his nephews Poets William Rose and Stephen Vincent Benet. He lives in a beautiful apartment on Avenue de Camoens with a fine view across Paris to the Sacre Coeur, white in the sun. He is a Commander of the Legion of Honor, a Commander of the Military Order of Christ (Portuga), an Officer of Osmania (Turkey), a Commander of the Crown of Rumania. He belongs to the American Legion, the U. S. Naval Institute, the U. S. Army Ordnance Association, Washington's Metropolitan Club and the St. Cloud Country Club. As a U. S. citizen he still considers himself a Republican. But the most important fact of all about M. Benet is that he is vice president and managing director of the armament firm of Hotchkiss which turns out one of the world's best known machine guns.

Last week in the annual report of Hotchkiss & Cie Managing Director Benet had happy news for his stockholders. Due to an improvement in the arms business, profits for 1933 were $1,005,785 compared to $992,358 for 1932. Therefore he was able to declare a dividend of 65 francs per share ($4.32), compared to 60 francs ($3.98) a year ago.

Despite its million-dollar net profits Hotchkiss & Cie is really small fry in the armament world compared to such a French giant as Schneider-Creusot. Its distinctions are two: 1) it is independent of Schneider-Creusot which owns or controls 412 arms and allied enterprises including Czechoslovakia's Skoda. 2) Though a French firm, its founder like its present managing director was a U. S. citizen, Benjamin Berkeley Hotchkiss, born in Watertown, Conn. in 1826, made a fortune manufacturing guns and munitions for the North during the Civil War. He went to Europe in 1867, established a cartridge factory in the south of France. His capital increased by profits from the Franco-Prussian War, he moved to Paris to set up a new arms factory in suburban St. Denis. Ben Hotchkiss, like his compatriots, Gatling and Maxim, was one of the inventors of the modern machine gun. One of the firm's best sellers, now long outmoded, was Director Benet's own invention. Though the U. S. Army prefers the Browning, France uses the Hotchkiss extensively. So does Japan. To make him comfortable the Hotchkiss company keeps a special office for the Japanese military attache near Paris on its private testing range. Most of last year's increased business was due to the campaign in Manchukuo.

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