Spry, spruce Clarence Hungerford Mackay is frequently seen at the opera, at symphony concerts, horse races, golf tournaments, yachting events.* He enjoys the click of writing machines, the throb of music, the thud of hoofs on a hard-packed course, the smack of driver against ball, the slap of flopping sails. But best of all to his ears must be the clack-clack of telegraph instruments, for he is one of the great communication powers of the world.
He is President of the Commercial Cable Co., of the Postal Telegraph-Cable Co., of the Commercial. Pacific Cable Co., of the Commercial Cable Co. of Cuba. Too, and most importantly, he is President of the Mackay Companies, parent to many subordinate concerns in which he is interested. For the Companies Mr. Mackay last week made the annual report. Its assets were $94,294,549.86, of which $93,837,754 represent investments. For dividend purposes the Companies took from subordinates $4,801,207, the balance of earnings being left in the individual treasuries as a matter of policy.
1925 was the best year in the histories of the various companies. Yet 1926 promises to be better, Mr. Mackay told his stockholders. He told them too how they had established the first direct communication between the U. S. and Italy by connecting up at their station in the Azores with a new Italian line running by way of Malaga, Spain; how by Oct. 1 the U. S. and Germany will again be in direct communication through a cable now going down between Emden, Germany, and the Azores; how by establishing an automatic relay in Newfoundland the capacity of their two northern cables between Waterville, Ireland, and Canson, N. S. would be increased by 25%; that the competition of radio, wireless telegraphy, telephone, and air mail has not bothered.
*He is a director of the Metropolitan Opera Co. and of the Westchester Racing Assn., Vice President of the New Theatre, member of the N. Y. Yacht Club, the Atlantic Yacht Club, the Carteret Gun Club, the Racquet & Tennis Club.
#&134;Of his companies.