THE AMERICAN CRASH

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 205, 13 August 1932, Page 11

THE AMERICAN CRASH

"ROCKEFELLER NOT RICH." ECLIPSE OF MILLIONAIRES. Londonj June 22. “A banker told me that there ;re no rich men left in America,” said Mr Selfridge at a luncheon of the American Chamber of Commerce in London, ‘‘We used to think that Rockefeller was a rich man,” he said, "but with New York Central shares at 17, he is no longer wealthy. “I Was told of a Vanderbilt who owned 168,000 shares of New York Central stock. In the boom time they were worth *112,000,000 or £13,000,000, and he had an income of from £1,500,000 to £2,000,000 a year. “The shares are now worth about 1,500,000 dollars, with no dividend whatever.” Mr Selfridge said he returned from his recent visit to America confirmed in his opinion that democracy was a failure. “In tny judgment,” he said, “what must eventually come is the control of a country by an inspiring, unselfish spirit, managing it as a great business is managed. "In a hundred, two hundred years —perhaps less —there will be no more democracies in existence. We don’t known enough to govern ourselves. “We need a leader, an inspirer, some one to attend to our own affairs more than anything else.”