Show Z T NEWS THIS WEEK vir E E K by LEMUEL F PARTON EV YORK the other day a brisk dapper little old man stepped into inta i a taig b 19 wall i street tie if investment banking office and asked for the top boss WC W C durant with an air ol of in scrimmage assurance he again at 77 had an audience and came out full ol of business and stepping high A friend who was doing business there that day reports to me that the peppy visitor was william G durant twice head of general motors once the master of and that at the age of 77 mr air durant was scouting new capital for another big tourney in motor finance my friend learn cheth er he be got it but said he be had heard there was a deal on which might put mr air durant on the main line again tie he said the lit tle tie napoleon of early day auto finance looked as if he be were about to merge all companies and skim the cream it was in 1910 that the bankers crowded mr durant out of the presidency of general motors he was back in 1915 and out again in 1920 in the postwar post war crash in which he jettisoned jetti of his own ey trying to stop the down of the stock he took his losses dually and was busy tor for years in daring market forays but never quite converted any of his passes an acquaintance of this writer who knew mr durant well told me how he laughed off his bis second relinquishment linquish ment of his motors kingdom 1 I built the glea greatest test automobile building in the world at detroit he said according to my informant and when I 1 did it I 1 fixed it so they wont soon forget me hidden Ame somewhere where in everi every column and every capital and big stack of that building there Is a deeply chiseled D there anything anonymous about that job and I 1 took good care to leave my mark oo on it did the king in kippings Kip lings poem be was pulled oft his big pal a guilding Suil ding job when they said ct use is fulfilled he carved on every timber and cut on every stone and the poem concludes after me cometh a builder tell him I 1 too have known 0 FOR several years dr karl M T compton president of massachusetts institute of technology and one of the nations greatest scientists has explored ahe the for science land no mans government between an an ex collaboration banding govern ment men tand and an ex he thinks they ought to get together but he is no advocate of bureaucracy or extreme federalization he like the idea of the government getting on neck he thinks the government ern ment with its vast resources might be an invaluable collaborator with science and should bein be in fact but he advances this idea warily as he finds creativeness and social p progress in the old american free tor for all without elaborate govern mental trimmings ile he never claimed an ivory tower lower and sees the problem in its simple social components of jobs a rising standard of living social progress and security he notes the job killing potentialities of the machine uncertain in certain individual instances and assesses industrial management with finding a corrective this qualified qualified admission is in sharp contrast to the view of dr robert andrews millikan another distinguished scientist who has wrestled with the same problem doctor millikan is tor for throwing the throttle wide open with the certainty that machines ultimately will make more jobs than they destroy both however prescribe as a cure for our technological ills more of the hair of the dog that bit us the difference in view is that thai dr compton urges certain collective rationalizations and judicious self imposed controls by industry and manai management ement for many years dr compton has been blasting at the inner citadel of the atom to seize there the hidden bidden golden key of cited power which has long been the pie in the sky of the great physicists he batters down a rampart now and then and in the long view of the scientists thinks that we may some day tap reservoirs of energy so vast that all our present ills will be easily soluble therein he has headed M L I 1 T since 1930 now rounding 50 he was head of the department of physics at princeton before 1930 one of the most richly garlanded men of his profession in honors and records 01 of achievement a consolidated news Feti features tures service |