Munsey's Magazine, May 1911

Munsey's Magazine, May 1911 This issue of Munsey's Magazine features "Crown Princes of Capital," a nonfiction article by Isaac F. Marcosson examining succession in American financial leadership. The piece surveys the next generation of Wall Street power brokers as the aging titans—J.P. Morgan (age 75), Rockefeller, Hill, and others—approach retirement or death. Marcosson argues that the era of individual financial despotism has ended, replaced by institutional stability and public oversight through bodies like the Interstate Commerce Commission. He profiles rising financiers including Henry P. Davison, who rose from bank clerk in Troy, Pennsylvania to becoming a Morgan partner by age forty; Albert H. Wiggin of Chase National Bank; Otto H. Kahn of Kuhn, Loeb & Company; Samuel McRoberts; Joseph T. Talbert; Thomas W. Lamont; and Charles H. Sabin of Guaranty Trust. The article includes Davison's dramatic early career anecdote of disarming an armed robber at Astor Place Bank through quick thinking, and his pivotal role during the 1907 financial panic coordinating with Morgan and other leaders. The issue also contains period advertising, including a Pears' Soap advertisement tied to Mother's Day observance.