The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 93

Page Fivo 1 ough ropositions A ackled Samuel McRoberts, Chairman of Chatham Phenix Board of Directors, Early Exhibited Tenacity of Purpose By DuBois K. Wiggins UCCESS depends on day to day execution of one's allotted tasks. We cannot plan ahead. Do your job from day to day and do it well. Dig in, and you will in time that opportunities lie before you." Such is the success advice of ruddy-faced, white-haired Samuel Mc Roberts, chairman of the board of directors of the huge Chatham Phenix National Bank and Trust Company, which has deposits in excess of two hundred million dollars.

He is also a brigadier general of the Officers' Keserve Corps, United Staus Army, and served in the World War with that rank from Aug. 28, 198, until the close of the conflict. "1 have no great respect for luck," he went on to -say when interviewed in his handsome, ornate, quiet office in the headquarters of the Chatham Phenix Bank on lower Broadway. "In my own career there was no especial turning point," he says. "Circumstances forced me scramble early in life, and I kept it up." Exceptional ability and a remarkable personality should receive some credit for his long and praisewoiy however, no matter how much the scrambling contributed.

The noted financier was born at Malta Bend, the son of Alexander Highlander McRoberts, a descendant of Scottish pioneers who settled in Virginia during the Revolutionary War period and later moved to Ohio. His mother, whose maiden nams, was Ellen Sisk, was of a Maryland Scotch-Irish family long established in the United States. The most fun he ever had, General McRoberts has often told his friends, was when as a boy on his father's farm in Missouri he used to drop down between the rafters in the mule sheds upon the backs of unbroken i mules, wrap his arms and legs about them and let them kick. This early experience of his showed most clearly that he was fond of tackling tough propositions, even in his early days. Another characteristic, however, that is shown was his tackling the tough proposition in the easiest way.

After attending the public schools in his native place he became a student at Baker University, Baldwin, Kan. Although he had had to do the usual chores of the farm boy, his life was not of the peasant type, for his father was prosperous. This father understood the advan-, tages of education and was determined to see that Samuel IV imt -Hi- pany lost the case but gained me as its attorney. The story says that I got a job with the Armour organization because I was so good that they couldn't afford to have me opposing them thereafter. That's not the truth at all.

I got the job by- reading their advertisement in a newspaper and making a very humble application." At any rate in 1895 he did join their legal and thereupon followed a period of rapid advancement on proven ability. By 1904 he was treasurer of the company, which was one of the largest packing concerns in the world. As treasurer of Armour Co. he handled the sale of in bonds to the National City Bank of New York and Kuhn, Loeb Co. His ability so impressed Frank A.

Vanderlip and the other officers of the National City Bank that they offered him the position of vice president of the institution. His training of law, business and finance has added a valuable experience to his forceful and aggressive character, but his energy creates no friction. He still has the habit or getting on top of his job, as he did the mules, by the most efficient way. One of his chief concerns on entering the employ of the National City Bank was international finance. It has continued to interest him to this day.

He brought to America, early in the war, huge loans from foreign governments and was made one of the five executive managers of the National City Bank and as such had a part in most of the big financial problems of the day. Then came America's entrance to the World War. In November, 1917, Mr. McRoberts was commissioned a major in the Reserve Corps and soon afterward was promoted to be colonel in the National Army. In December, 1917, be was elevated to chief of the Procurement Division, Ordnance Department.

On Aug. 28, 1918, as already stated, Colonel McRoberts was appointed brigadier-general and transferred to the American Expeditionary Force and at the close of the war was mustered out with that rank, McRoberts should gain one. He received nis first aegree in 1891, after doing some teaching while an undergraduate. Young Samuel had decided to forsake the soil, an ambition with- which his father was fully in accord. Accordingly the youth went to Michigan to study law after getting a collegiate background.

Then came a period when he debated newspaper work as a profession. "I couldn't see any money in my first job of writing articles for a newspaper," he recalls, "so I worked for $5 a week as a law clerk in Chicago. You couldn't live on that now. Even then if I bought a postage stamp in the morning I felt it at the end of the week when the laundry bill came to me. I had turned aside from journalism on discovering that it offered but small financial return; for a while the law seemed no better.

"There is a story that clings to me," he went on to say, "that may have a certain amount of picturesqueness, but it is untrue. I want to deny it once more. "That story is the one that in the second year of law practice I had a case against Armour Co. and the com- Samuel McRoberts. retaining it, however, in the Officers' Keserve Corp.

At the end of the gigantic conflict General McRoberts for by that title he was known and is still knowa in the world of finance re-entered business as president of the1 Metropolitan Trust Company of the City of New York, of which he was controlling owner. In March, 1925, the Metropolitan Trust Compsny merged with the Chatham and Phenix National Bank under the name of the Chatham Phenix National Bank and Trust Company and he is now chairman of the board of directors of this bank, with Louis G. Kaufman as president. "My philosophy of lifer-" he repeated when questioned; "I am not sure that I have any carefully worked out plan. Take care of the thing that you are doing and do it well.

The future will take care of Itself." Another characteristic remark he made was to say, "We try to please all customers." The "we" in that cast was himself. If his associates were asked to tell what distinguished General McRoberts from other bank executives and big business men whom they know they would probably answer, "His energy," for that, though his head is topped with white hair today, is still true. He has that air of accomplishment and distinction which marks the really big man, and more than a hint of military bearing. He is brief, direct and incisive in speech and sincere in manner. It has been said that American business men ran the army during the war, and it might as pointedly asserted that American business of today is in many instances being conducted by army men.

In both cases they are the same individuals, and the success of the army is being duplicated in business, even being enlarged upon, because of army training. The motto of the American Expeditionary Force was, "Get it done," and that same spirit now animates many business organizations in which results are considered paramount. General McRoberts is a typical example, a man who profited by his army executive experience. This experience involved providing supplies for mora than a million fighting men and disposing of supplies that had been bought and were no longer needed after the Armistice and the demobilization period was at hand. He holds the degrees of A A.M.

and LL.D. from Baker University, his alma mater, of which he is a trustee, and gained his law degree, LL.B., from Michigan. Besides widely separated business affairs that hava put him on the boards of directors of many important corporations, such as public utilities, transportation companies and packing concerns, General McRoberts finds time to take upon himself other interests demanding considerable attention church, educational and otherwise. Anything out of from golf to duck shooting, he is likely to consider favorably as a hsbby. As a Boy He Enjoyed Riding the Unbroken Mates..