Word: merchant
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Through eight days and 800 pages of testimony in Federal Court in Manhattan, a handsome, boyish Swedish merchant marine officer unemotionally went back and forth over the dozen minutes of his life that he would never forget nor be allowed to forget. On the night of July 25, Third Mate Johan-Ernst Carstens-Johannsen, 26, was in command of the bridge of the 12,500-ton Swedish liner Stockholm when she speared and sank the 29,000-ton Italian liner Andrea Doria. At stake, as he told his story, were not only legal claims totaling some $40 million...
...fincas and cattle ranches, parlayed them into a fortune estimated at $60 million-some $20 million more than Nicaragua's annual budget. He reputedly owned one-tenth of the country's farmland, plus interests in lumber, liquor, soap, cement, power, textiles, cotton-ginning, sugar-milling, air transport, merchant shipping, even a barbershop-an estimated 430 properties. "You'd do the same thing yourself if you were in my place," he used to explain. Nicaragua advanced a little; e.g., more than 600 miles of all-weather roads were built to connect the Somoza properties, but it remains...
...months, he went from store to store until he had called on every retail merchant in the district; he averaged six speeches a night, endorsing price and rent controls, arguing for lower tariffs and higher immigration, championing organized labor and attacking the National Association of Manufacturers. When he discovered that the district had high literacy, he switched from handing out cigars to handing out pencils stamped with his name...
Rival Orchestras. Soon after the turn of the century, Dayton-born Arthur Judson became a violinist and teacher. A handsome, strongly built fellow with a resonant voice, he was soon speaking of music as another merchant might of hardware, and selling it as enthusiastically. In 1915 he became manager of the Philadelphia Orchestra, then founded his own concert agency. Gradually he added to his domain: in 1922 he became business manager of the New York Philharmonic, and in 1927 he became a co-founder of the Columbia Broadcasting System, gleefully predicting an immense shortage of artists as radio grew...
...Merchants he had neglected in town hurried to the chateau to display their choicest wares. The Count Foucou de Gines (rhymes roughly with jeans) picked over their offerings judiciously, settled on 20 jade statuettes, a few more paintings, some luxury editions of books. By the time he was through, the count had written checks for $71,000 worth of bric-a-brac. The count's secretary, taking advantage of an old French custom, scurried around to each merchant and demanded 10% commission on everything his master had bought. He collected, in cash, some 2,000,000 francs...