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Clearly the Iron Man from across the Rhine was addressing himself, last week, chiefly to the men from across the Atlantic, and especially to one of them whose strong fist is invariably mantled in a metaphorical Velvet Glove—John Pierpont Morgan.
Enigmatic Morgan. The foremost financier on this round Earth favored the Second Dawes Committee, last week, with an address lasting only a few seconds. At an early session of the Committee, when the other delegates each made succinct 10 minute speeches outlining the policies of their governments, Mr. Morgan rose, indicated his U. S. colleague Mr. Young, and said:
"We have come to help."
Without being profound, this remark was perhaps quite as characteristic and quite as adequate as the single sentence which Tycoon Morgan was persuaded to utter in 1924, just after he had granted a credit of $100,000,000 to stabilize the tottering French franc. Said he then— and could he wisely have said more?—: "France has taken the necessary steps to stabilize the situation in the face of all contingencies."
Ex-Plowboy Owen D. Young, now Chairman of General Electric Co. and Radio Corp. of America, proved unable or unwilling to duplicate the blooded, Bourbon rôle of aloofness played, last week, by the "last of the J. P. Morgans." As one who had had a leading part in drafting the original Dawes Plan, Tycoon Young began to show pique when Dr. Schacht neared the climax of his argument as to why Germany must not pay all she owes. A passing reference made by Berlin's Iron Man to the fact that Germany has met all her Dawes payments thus far, caused Mr. Young to remark ironically to Dr. Schacht:
"Thanks for your implied appreciation of the Dawes Plan."
Bourbon Morgan. During the U. S. Civil War, Mr. Junius Spencer Morgan of London observed historically to his English banker colleagues:
"Anyone who sells a bear on the United States will go broke."
Thus the grandsire of today's J. P. Morgan actually coined Hearst Editor Brisbane's famed slogan: "Don't sell the country short." Mr. Junius Spencer Morgan had participated in the dry-goods business at Boston, Mass, before he removed to London and founded the English firm of J. S. Morgan & Co. Later, this became Morgan, Grenfell & Co., which is today the London office of Morgan's.
Junius begat "J. P." Dry goods receded into oblivion and the House of Morgan had its Louis XIV. Perhaps prosaic Americans never quite realized that in gigantic, predatory J. P. Morgan I they had an authentic Emperor of Railways and Commerce, a sovereign whose technically free serfs were trainmen, and who levied legal tribute on the public. Italians, quicker to perceive such romantic truths, commonly referred to Morgan in his latter years as Il Magnifico. The numberless art treasures which he carried off from Italy—by no better right than his irresistible power to pay any price—doubtless clinched the Italian conviction that he was indeed Il Magnifico.