Transport: Kites to Bombers

(4 of 5)

He sits down at his desk before 8:30, tall and impassive, and with slim spatulate fingers runs through his mail. During the morning he drops in at the engineering building, where 460 engineers and draftsmen are at work, to peer at blueprints and drawings. Sometimes he goes through the plant, where 6,000 mechanics turn out his ships in a method as nearly resembling straight-line production as fee aircraft industry has yet approximated. But Glenn Martin does not tinker with airplanes any more. He tells other people what he wants. When he returns to his office he is as unruffled and immaculate as before. A fussy dresser, he goes in for double-breasted suits in sturdy fabrics, insists that his tailors (Bell & Co., Manhattan) put cuffs on his coat sleeves, adorn his lapels and cuffs with little raised ridges that give the suits a ribbed appearance vaguely like the belly of a B10.

Frequently he goes to Manhattan, tearing up the highway at breakneck speed with his mother sitting unruffled beside him. But never does he go by airplane. Few years ago only stockholders in the company were Martin and Motorman Louis Chevrolet. But in 1934, with funds needed for expansion, 325,000 shares of Glenn L. Martin Co. were put on the market at $11.50 a share (current price: $34.625). Today, Martin remains well in control with some 37% of the stock in his hands, but the bankers who are now interested in his company have taken him out of the air. Because Martin is the Martin Company they are taking no chances. His life is insured for $1,000,000 and the policy is void if he so much as gets into an airplane on which a propeller is turning.

In 1937, the Martin Company turned a net profit of $1,144,858. Last year it made $2,349,355 (equal to $2.15 a share) and in the first quarter of this year it made $682,496. Yet Martin has never paid a cash dividend, has ploughed back its earnings into plant expansion and reserve.

When Martin goes to Manhattan with his mother, he stays over to see a show or two, any kind just so he's sure it's likely to be good. Occasionally he goes duck shooting on the Chesapeake. Still more rarely he goes on short cruises in his 107-foot, twin-Diesel yacht Glenmar, from which he keeps in communication with the plant by radiotelephone. He likes to talk about plans for a long trip at sea, but probably he will never make it, because he invariably finds ways to keep himself busy.

With the help of a maid, widowed Minta Martin keeps house for her son in Baltimore's swank Ambassador Apartments, just a short walk from the Second Presbyterian Church, of which she is an active member. Martin sometimes goes with her to church on Sundays, dodges it when he can. On evenings when they don't go to the movies he likes to sit at home, surrounded by massive furniture and by paintings of landscapes which Minta Martin has dashed off from time to time over the past 40 years. Two years ago Mrs. Martin stopped painting, doesn't expect to resume again. There is no more room on the walls.