Business & Finance: Astor, Shipping, Youth

William Vincent Astor has been interested in mechanics ever since, in his late teens, he greasily dismembered his Franklin automobile. During the War his mechanical bent led him to ships, and he rose from U. S. ensign to lieutenant, served in foreign waters. Nor did his interest in ships decay with peace. Last year there was delivered to him the Nourmahal, biggest oil-burning yacht in the world. Since its owner is Commodore of the New York Yacht Club, the Nourmahal is the Club flagship. Indeed the Astor interest in the sea is so great as to be almost exclusive of all else. Last week, going from pleasure to business, Commodore Astor acquired an important interest in the Roosevelt Steamship Co. From Southern waters, where he is cruising in his Nourmahal, he sent a wire, announced his intention of taking an active interest in the affairs of the line. Up to this time Vincent Astor has confined his business activities to buying and selling real estate—of which he was left a goodly amount by his father, the late John Jacob Astor.

The Roosevelt Line, to which Mr. Astor has turned his money and his attention, operates 24 motor ships between U. S. points on the Atlantic and Australia, India, and the Far East. It is important but not dominant in the field of American shipping. Both the Dollar and the United States lines surpass it in tonnage and revenue. But the Roosevelt Line is rapidly developing into a competitor to be reckoned with by the two older giants. Kermit Roosevelt, son of Theodore the Great, organized the Roosevelt Line in 1920 to operate a fleet of ships to India for the Shipping Board. In 1926 he took into the company two widely known young shipping men: John M. Franklin, whose father heads International Mercantile Marine Co., and Basil Harris. The Line is now negotiating for a trans-Atlantic mail contract between Baltimore and Norfolk and Havre, Hamburg, and Bremen, which calls for five 16-knot steamships. The Roosevelt Line is thus a young man’s company, and the accession of Commodore Astor emphasizes this feature. His directorship certainly means added re sources for the Roosevelt Line in its bidding for the Baltimore-Hamburg mail contract, and may well mean that a substantial part of the Astor fortune is to be devoted to building up the American merchant marine.