Page 29 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 94, No. 1 Fall 2013

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Impeccable Connections:
The Rise and Fall of
Richard Whitney
by Malcolm MacKay ’59
Brick Tower Press,
117 pages, $12.95
Reviewed by Richard Davis, faculty emeritus
For his entire adult life, Malcolm MacKay
has been thinking about why Richard
Whitney went from sitting president of
the New York Stock Exchange to residing
in a prison cell in Sing Sing. As a boy and
young man, MacKay knew Whitney. In
searching for the answer to Whitney’s
fall, the author traces his life from Groton
to Harvard, from the Stock Exchange in
the Great Depression to a life of embez-
zlement. It’s a fascinating story well told.
Richard Whitney was the man “exquis-
itely dressed in a three-piece suit with
a watch chain displaying the gold pig
charm of Harvard’s exclusive Porcellian
Club” who, on Black Thursday (October
24, 1929), strolled through the Exchange
buying stocks in a bankers’ effort to stop
the crash. By the next day he had become
a national figure; he then served as presi-
dent of the Exchange from 1930 to 1935,
helping it become, in his own description,
“the Stock Exchange to millions of people.”
In telling Whitney’s story, MacKay re-
views a relevant and thought-provoking
period in America’s history – the devel-
opment of church schools, the difference
between Boston and New York in the De-
pression, and the culture of the upper class
that Whitney worked to join. Whitney’s
fight against New Deal reforms reminds
us of the struggle over financial regula-
tion now being enacted. In his time, Whitney
argued that the self-regulating Exchange
was “a perfect institution” and fought to
retain its independence, arguing that gov-
ernment regulation would lead to socialism.
In his own world, Whitney lived in Brah-
min style, with a five-story townhouse in
New York City and a 500-acre country
estate in Far Hills, N.J., with servants at
both residences and a separate staff of
a dozen to care for his 20 horses and a
variety of livestock.
While he was saving the Exchange, Whit-
ney’s own questionable investments began
Citizens DisUnited
Robert A.G. Monks ’50
Monks, an experienced,
highly successful busi-
nessman, Fortune 500
board member, lawyer,
and former public offi-
cial explains how a few individuals could
reverse the trends that threaten the
very fabric of the United States – and
calls them out by name.
Sunset, Stars, and
Blueberry Pie: Nelson,
N.H. (1930-1950)
Bruce B. White ’47
The author writes about
the best times of his life,
spent on a small farm
in Nelson, New Hampshire, in the 1930s
and 40s. This story provides a boy’s view
of the town’s incredibly wonderful char-
acters, including mailmen, policemen,
and storekeepers, of the Depression and
war years.
Anything That Moves:
Renegade Chefs, Fear-
less Eaters, and the
Making of a New
American Food Culture
Dana Goodyear ’94
New Yorker writer Dana
Goodyear combines the style of Mary
Roach with the on-the-ground food
savvy of Anthony Bourdain in a rollick-
ing narrative look at the shocking ex-
tremes of the contemporary American
food world. Anything That Moves is
simultaneously a humorous adventure,
a behind-the-scenes look at food
preparation, and an attempt to under-
stand the implications of the way we
eat. The result is a highly entertain-
ing, revelatory look into the raucous,
strange, fascinatingly complex world of
On the Shelf . . .
contemporary American food culture, and
the places where the extreme is bleeding
into the mainstream.
Rough Passage to London:
A Sea Captain’s Tale
Robin Lloyd ’69
This historical novel is
filled with seafaring mys-
tery and suspense. The
protagonist, real Ameri-
can ship captain Elisha Ely Morgan, was
a close friend of Charles Dickens about
whom Dickens wrote the short story “A
Message from the Sea.” The book tells
Morgan’s story, beginning with his escape
from home to become a cabin boy on a
London-bound ship. The author, a direct
descendant of Morgan, combined meticu-
lous research and rich imagination to fill in
the details of Morgan’s voyages across the
Atlantic over a 30-year period. Morgan’s
story parallels America’s coming of age
in the 19th century, when American tall
ships dominated the horizon.
Views from the
Rector’s Porch:
Lessons of a Headmaster
William A. Oates,
Selected and Introduced
by Todd S. Purdum ’78
Eighth Rector William
Oates led a progressive renaissance
during his St. Paul’s School tenure.
Here, journalist Todd Purdum, a former
student and longtime friend of the Oates
family, has compiled an anthology of
Oates’s diverse writings, which record
the educational philosophy and moral
outlook of this distinguished educator.
It is also a paean to the vital academy
that is St. Paul’s School, which continues
to produce leaders in American govern-
ment, diplomacy, finance, religion, law,
and letters.
to fail. To save himself and his business
from going under, he first leaned on friends
for loans before turning to theft from the
NYSE and other organizations to keep him-
self afloat. The “what” is well established
in the many histories of that time; it’s the
“why” that MacKay explores in his book
and that readers will look to for insight.
If I were still teaching, I would use this
for my history, economics, and law and
government classes. You don’t need to be a
history buff to be drawn in by this story of
a spectacular downfall that foreshadowed
the modern-day Bernie Madoff scandal.