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The Story. In a land where there are no dukes, no duchesses, tycoons abound. Out of prairie shacks along muddy roads, out of shambles along bumpy city streets, out of brownstone palaces,* out of the acid atmosphere of laboratories and the indefinable air of classrooms, the tycoons have come. Now they are united and reunited in one big, perhaps happy family (28,805 strong) between the covers of a fat red book. It is a story of success.
The Authors. They tell the story themselves, but first they must be asked to do so by Albert Nelson Marquis, editor and publisher of Who's Who. They use a formula laid down by Mr. Marquis, giving their occupation, age, birthplace, parents, wives and children (if any), clubs, published works, religion, etc. Some of them, notably John Pierpont Morgan and Charles Augustus Lindbergh, omit their religion. Others weasel their occupations; William Tatem Tilden Jr. was listed as "author" in the 1926-27 edition and now (1928-29) is simply a "tennis player."
New names in the new volume are Helen Wills, Mayor James J. Walker of New York, Walter Percy Chrysler, Colleen Moore, Football Coaches Robert Carl Zuppke and Glenn Scobey Warner, Charles Augustus Lindbergh and Clarence Duncan Chamberlin—others totaling 3,931.
Notable omissions are Thornton Niven Wilder, Mrs. Calvin Coolidge,† Charles Lanier Lawrance (designer of the motor which carried Lindbergh, and president of the great Wright Aeronautical Corp.), James Joseph Tunney and practically all figures of professional sports, John Gilbert, Clara Bow and many another cinemaddict's favorite. Jackie Coogan, 14, however, gets in, as does Harold Lloyd.
There are three Snooks in Who's Who: Homer Clyde Snook, electrophysicist; John S. Snook, onetime Congressman from Ohio; John Wilson Snook, warden of the U. S. penitentiary at Atlanta. They are related, but not brothers.
The story begins with Charles Dettie Aaron, Detroit doctor, and ends with Flora G. Zygman, Polish pianist.
The Significance. "The names in Who's Who in America are selected not as the best but as an attempt to choose the best known men and women of the country in all lines of useful and reputable achievements," says Editor Marquis. Yet, where is the crack reporter, whose business it is to know persons, who has even heard of more than one-fifth of the persons in Who's Who? The answer is that many obscure professors, physicians, clergymen, officials, who seldom make headlines, fall under the classifications of "useful and reputable," while Babe Ruth and Clara Bow apparently do not.
*Where some persons are popularly and erroneously supposed to have been born with silver spoons in their mouths.
†Her husband has an average-length biography. Charles Evans Hughes and Elihu Root have two of the longest.