Word: hanna
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Cleveland's M. A. Hanna Co. looks like a holding company (it has controlling or substantial interests in steel, coal, rayon and plastics companies), an investment trust (it owns $109 million worth of securities), and an operating company (it has its own fleet of 13 Great Lakes ore freighters, mines its own coal). It is indeed the great what-is-it?-and lean, square-jawed President George M. Humphrey likes it that way. Says he: "If we don't write down the way it's supposed to be, we can do it any way we want...
Humphrey's way is to keep moving. Last week he added a big chunk of new territory to M. A. Hanna's hodgepodge empire. With three of his longtime ore customers (Inland Steel, Armco and Wheeling Steel), Humphrey put together a $15-million syndicate to buy control of Butler Brothers,* which owns five groups of ore mines and large reserves in Minnesota's Mesabi and Cuyuna ranges. Mesabi's high-grade ores are being rapidly depleted, and the deal gave Humphrey's syndicate a fat share of what's left. Butler Brothers annually ships...
...empire he rules was founded in 1867 when Cleveland's Dan Rhodes grubstaked early explorers of the Mesabi. Rhodes took over ore claims for bad debts. Mark Hanna, Rhodes's son-in-law (and later "kingmaker" behind President McKinley), added the ships to haul the ore, blast furnaces to smelt it, and coal mines to provide return cargo...
...George Humphrey, an up & coming lawyer in Saginaw, Mich., caught the eye of Dick Grant, Hanna's general counsel, and joined the company. In 1929, young Humphrey moved into the presidency. Under him, Hanna made money even during the worst years of the depression. Humphrey says: "We only do the obvious." But he has the knack of making money out of the obvious...
...Hanna's invention, which is adaptable to buses, is now being tested by one of the big railroads. Westinghouse also claims that the device will enable trains to travel 25% faster on curves...