RETAIL TRADE: Destiny's Knock

Before the massive, golden-brassy gate Of final destiny, I stand—and knock.

Thus, in 1927, wrote Richard Weil Jr. in Yale's famed Lit. magazine. The poem was prophetic, for destiny's doors seemed to develop a habit of opening before brainy young Richard Weil's imperious knock. The doors of Macy's, the department-store chain, opened because Weil was the grandson of Isidor Straus, one of the original owners. But Weil rose rapidly on his own merits. By 32, he had been propelled from a sales clerk to president of Bamberger's, Macy's Newark (N.J.) store. In 1949, at the age of 42, he became president of Macy's in Manhattan, the world's largest department store.

Weil, who once tried to hire Chicago's Philosopher Mortimer Adler (TIME, March 17) as a Vice President in Charge of Thinking, thought that "retailing is a backward and disorganized industry." He would also admit that Macy's had lost ground, was not growing in Manhattan as it had done in the '20s. He prophesied: "It will do so again in the '50s. If it doesn't, I will have been a failure."

Macy's did not grow faster. Last year, in fact, it had one of the worst years in its history. The chain's profits, which depend largely on the New York store, tumbled from $7.7 million to $3.9 million, from $4.10 per common share to $1.67. One big factor, some competitors thought, was the money-losing price war which Weil had touched off with a big fanfare of ads right after the U.S. Supreme Court knocked out fair-trade laws. Weil had thought that the war would last a few days; it ran for six weeks and many of the cuts were so deep that they hurt.

Last week the golden-brassy gate of destiny clanged shut against Richard Weil. Macy's directors agreed to accept his resignation as president, although he will keep his second job as vice president of the chain. His cousin and predecessor, Jack Straus, 52, announced that he would take on the Manhattan job along with his bigger one of running the whole Macy chain. Straus attributed the change to Weil's two heart attacks. Said Weil: "I never felt better in my life. I just figured I'd carried two jobs long enough."

The Arabian American Oil Co., world's biggest single oil producer, last week elected Robert Loring Keyes, 56, president to succeed W. F. Moore, who resigned. (Chairman F. A. Davies remains the top executive.) At the insistence of old King Ibn Saud (TIME, March 3), who gets half of Aramco's profits, President Keyes and the company's top brass will soon be moving to Saudi Arabia. Said Ibn Saud:"Every time there's a decision to be made . . . you have to refer it to New York ... in the future let's refer it here." Rangy, 6 ft. 2 in. President Keyes, graduate of Pomona College (1917), started as an oil geologist. Later he joined the Texas Co., one of Aramco's owners. For the last nine months, he has been assistant general manager of Texaco's producing department.