People: Sep. 8, 1930

"Names make news." Last week the following names made the following news:

A truck careened through the streets of Langhorne, Pa., was halted by a speed officer; The driver paid $10 for breaking the speed law. His cargo: the law library of Charles Evans Hughes, Chief Justice of the U. .S.

"The false whiskers so becomingly worn by our Cleveland friend will be removed," radiographed Cyrus Stephen Eaton last March to John T. Harrington, president of Trumbull Steel. Last week the message was read in court. Newton D. Baker, attorney for the merger of Bethlehem Steel and Youngstown Sheet & Tube, asked Mr. Eaton whom he meant. Mr. Eaton said "our Cleveland friend" was Henry G. Dalton, vice president of Youngstown and a director in Bethlehem.

"Have you ever seen him wear whiskers?" asked Attorney Baker.

"They refer," replied Mr. Eaton, "not to physical whiskers so much as to another kind of mask."

Every two years for the last three decades, persons have been transformed into Personages or continued as the latter by the meticulous editorial staff of Albert Nelson Marquis of Chicago, publisher of Who's Who in America. Last week the 16th edition of Who's Who issued from the bindery into the clutches of newshawks and actuaries who quickly examined it for alterations and statistics. Simplest news facts: Since 1928, 3,498 names have been added, 2,559 dropped for death and other reasons, leaving a total of 29,704 compared to 28,805 in the 15th edition. Notable are inclusions and exclusions of the 16th edition. Included, for example, are Jackie Coogan, Robert Tyre ("Bobby") Jones Jr., many a newly famed industrialist. Not included are Greta Garbo, James Joseph ("Gene") Tunney, Tobacconist George Washington Hill. The preface explains that in 1900 Who's Who listed one in about 8,000 of the general populace. Now it lists one in about 4,000. Statistics would therefore argue that some day (specifically, in the year 2290) the Personages of the U. S. will overtake the U. S. population. Everyone will be Some One.

For years an author, a barrister and an educator have run a close race for Longest Paragraph in Who's Who. In 1928 Barrister Samuel Untermyer with his train of legal cases (viz., "successfully carried through the merger of the Utah Copper Co., with the Boston Consolidated and the Nev. Con. Cos., representing a market value of $100,000,000, for which was paid a lawyer's fee of $750,000;") held a narrow lead with 99 lines. Two thin lines behind, bolstered by 29 academic degrees and memberships in 86 associations, boards, clubs, colleges, congresses, leagues, societies, orders, ran Educator Nicholas Murray Butler. The 95 lines of Preacher & Author William Eleazer Barton, famed father of a famed son (Advertising Man Bruce Barton), eight times an editor, 59 times an author (The Soul of Abraham Lincoln, The Women Lincoln Loved, Acorns from an Oak Park Pulpit), put him third by another two thin lines.