Business & Finance: Death At No. 52

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His conversation was rapid, precise, lucid. Short, ruddy, white-haired, he wore a small mustache which he twisted with stubby white fingers when he grew excited. At No. 52 William St. he seldom sat in his private office, preferred to work in the bustle and noise of the partners' room. When the partners next meet in that room they will have a hard time finding a man to take Otto Kahn's place—a man with the personality and power to maintain the firm's great prestige. Felix Warburg, last of the old partners, acts today mostly as an adviser. Jerome Jones Hanauer, Jacob Schiff's trusted "inside man," retired last year. Sir William Wiseman is a Briton who has been a partner only five years. Today much of the work is done by Elisha Walker, onetime ally of Amadeo Peter Giannini, and by able Benjamin Buttenwieser, who, as manager of the firm's syndicate department, is considered one of the most brilliant young men in Wall Street.