Gallantry

On the S. S. Aquitania last week the first Mrs. Marshall Field departed quietly for Europe, financially secure with her $1,000,000-a-year settlement, domestically relieved to have her son, Marshall Field Jr., settled at Harvard, her daughters Bettine and Barbara in the Brearley School, Manhattan.

Toward Reno traveling by airplane was the second Mrs. Marshall Field. She, too, was now ready to divorce the affable New York multimillionaire whose grandfather had created in Chicago a name known round the world.

As for the wifeless multimillionaire, he gallantly espoused a responsibility for finest U. S. music by accepting the Presidency of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society.

The first Mrs. Marshall Field liked housekeeping and gardening. The second Mrs. Field first visited the U. S. in the Prince of Wales's entourage. She liked to dance and shoot lions, liked Marshall Field's Long Island estate with its elaborate pheasantry, its 20-car garage, its stable rich with polo ponies. Marshall Field danced and hunted with her. In Chicago his grandfather's department store was competently managed by two Scotsmen, James Simpson and John McKinlay. In his investment banking business (Field, Glore & Co.) he had an able partner.

Horses appealed to Marshall Field more than music, until last winter when the Philharmonic had to beg for its life. Chairman Clarence Hungerford Mackay, no longer able to take care of its deficits, refused to be its mouthpiece. President Harry Harkness Flagler became the campaign's commander, Marshall Field his gravely alert assistant. Together they underwrote the drive for $500,000. And Marshall Field became so interested in the Orchestra that he subscribed generously to the summer Stadium Concerts, went to many of them, gained a deeper understanding of Bach, Brahms, Beethoven.

Stomach ulcers forced Harry Harkness Flagler to resign last week. Marshall Field III was promptly elected president by a board which has learned to respect his quick decisions, his progressive ideas.

Marshall Field the merchant would not have approved. He stuck to storekeeping, detested sidelines. But he also drove to work in a spider whereas his namesake favors speed boats and airplanes. The Philharmonic's new president did not at tend the season's opening last week (see col. 1). He was shunning reporters who might question him on his divorce.

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