BANKING: Morgan’s Man

Once it would have been big news in Wall Street. But there was scarcely a ripple last week when J. P. Morgan & Co. Inc. chose a new president. Since the coming of the New Deal, the once mighty bank has been forced to give up its underwriting business, thus lost the chief source of its power.

Henry Clay Alexander, 48, the new president, was born in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and went from Vanderbilt University (’23) and Yale Law School to corporation practice with Morgan Lawyers Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Gardiner & Reed. He was a Morgan partner by the time he was 36. For the past 22 months, as executive vice president, he has been in line to move up. As he did, President George Whitney became chairman, replacing longtime Morgan Partner Russell C. Leffingwell, who, at 72, stepped down to vice chairman.