WEALTHY SUICIDES

Grey River Argus, 16 March 1932, Page 5

WEALTHY SUICIDES

U.S.A. MILLIONAIRE Follows Example of Kreugei (Aus. & N.Z. Cable Assn). LONDON, March 14Professor J. M. Keynes, broadcast ing from London, paid a remarkable tribute to Ivan Krcuger, the Swedish match king, who committed suicide with a revolver at Paris. He said Krcuger’s death was a poignant ex ample of the helplessness of the individual to face the many world problems. Krcuger was’ a man with perhaps- the greatest constructive financial intelligence of his age, whose farflung activities had been’ in the wi cst sense in the ■ public .interest, who conceived it his mission, amid the choas after the world-war, to furnish a channel between countries whose resources wore in surplus, and countries ■where they are desperately required, yet Kreuger was crushed between ttie icebergs of a frozen world, to which •io individual can restore the warmth oc normal life. PARIS, Alarch 14. That ;thc banks were pressing Krcuger is denied, it was known he failed to obtain in America the si>and a-half millions sterling due to Swedish banks on April 1. the failure to pay which involved their withholding sums to meet the dividends. Financiers in Berlin fear world-wide disaster, but London’s only precaution is marking down all internationals. [U.S.A. MULTI-MILLIONAIRE’S END PHOTOGRAPHIC GENIUS SHOOTS HIMSELF. (Aus. & N.Z. Cable Assn.) NEW YORK, March 14. A message from Rochester, states that George Eastman, aged seventyseven, a multi-millionaire, industrial ist, inventor, and philanthropist, died at his home to-day. A later message says that Eastman shot himself. He was Tiorn at Waterville, New York, on .Inly 12, 1854, and educated at Roch ester. In 1880 he perfected a process for manufacturing sensitive gelatine diw plates, and in the same year lw invented the first plate coating machine, which he patented. Four years later he patented the first commercially successful rollable film, and in 1888. the original Kodak camera. In 1890, he patented the first machine for making rollable transparent film. In 1890 lie was made a of the Leg-

ion of Honour. He was President oi the Eastman Kodak Co.. Alanaging Director of Kodak Ltd., and a director of the Eastman Kodak Societe in. France

He was known all over the world as a genius of the photographic industry, art collector, and big gamehunter. His benefactions to the time of his death had passed seventy-live million dollars. Dr Audley Stewart, in announcing that Eastman had shot himself, after putting all his attendants away from the bedside, said that Eastman left this note: “To my friends. Mr work is done. Why wait?”

Dr Stewart, who was Eastman’s personal physician for many years, said that while Eastman had been in ill-health for many years, apparently he had recovered to a degree encouraging to his friends. He was apparently in such a mental state that he shot himself, after sending his friends from his room. A moment after thev departed, they heard a shot, and returned to find him dead.