ROMANTIC CAREER.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20311, 22 May 1934, Page 5

ROMANTIC CAREER.

From Office Boy to Millionaire. A FINANCIAL GENIUS. By the sudden death of Mr Otto Herman Kahn, the millionaire American banker, the world has lost one of its greatest financial geniuses and one of its most lavish patrons of art. He was having lunch in his New York office when he suddenly fell forward in his chair. People rushed to his assistance, but he was already dead as the result of a heart attack. In the course of his career Mr Kahn was at one time a naturalised Englishman and a Parliamentary candidate: created a sensation by paying £105.000 for a picture; bought a house in London for a reputed price of £100,000: and lent St Dunstan’s, his house in Regent’s Park, London, for the training of blind ex-servicemen. Born in Mannheim, Germany, Mr Kahn was the son of a naturalised American. He entered the banking business as an office boy, and is said to have been singled out for promotion because the chief clerk noticed he licked twice as many stamps in an hour as any of the others. In 1888 he went to England, spent five years in the Deutsche Bank offices, and then went to America, where he subsequently joined the financial firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Co., with which he was associated for the rest of his life. lie became one of the most powerful bankers in America, and at one time his personal fortune was said to be in the region of £20,000,000. Throughout his life Mr Kahn was a keen patron of the arts, especially opera, lie was formerly chairman of the Metropolitan Opera Board of New York, and was an honorary director of the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. In 1932, Miss Rosalina Morini, the singer, brought an action against Mr Kahn. She claimed £50,000 damages,

alleging that her reputation had been damaged when the banker denied having said that she had “ one of the most beautiful voices ” he had ever heard. The action was settled out of court, no terms being made public. Another action was brought against Mr Kahn by Lydia Lingren, “ the Swedish nightingale,” who claimed £IOO,OOO for an alleged breach of an agreement. This was also settled out of court. Prior to the war Mr Kahn was in Britain. He became a naturalised Englishman, and stood for Parliament in the Gorton division of Manchester. It was in 1908 that he paid £105,000 for a Franz Hals picture. Two years later he acquired for £IOO,OOO a princely residence in Carlton House Terrace, London. He sold it again in 1913, and bought St Dunstan’s, Regent’s Park, which he generously lent as a hostel for blind ex-servicemen. The last-mentioned purchase rendered possible the great work carried on at St Dunstans, first under the direction of Sir Arthur Pearson, and later of Captain lan Fraser, M.P. The house was lent rent free, and Mr Kahn paid for the upkeep of the gardens. St Dunstan’s remained the headquarters of the blinded men until the marriage of Mr Kahn’s daughter. In 1917 Mr Kahn left for America, acquired citizenship there, and devoted himself to carrying on a campaign on behalf of the Allies. lie did much to bring America into the war, and is said to have contributed £1,000,000 to the Allied funds from his own pocket. Mr Kahn, who married a daughter of a partner in the firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Co., leaves two sons and two daughters.