"Mr. Filbert"

William J. Filbert was elected vice chairman of U. S. Steel's finance committee, a new office created last week. Bald, stocky, with a set mouth and prominent, piercing eyes, this almost unknown officer of the Steel company stepped into a place second only to Myron Charles Taylor.

Mr. Filbert's life has been given up to details--a tireless march down endless columns of Arabic numerals. Row after row of digits, decimals, averages, percentages--he makes them talk, tells their secrets only to Steel's directors.

Around Steel's offices there has grown up a fable of Filbertana: he is worth $5,000,000; he has never been wrong, never given a tip; often he locks himself in a hotel room for days working on some gigantic tabulation. In 1881 Bill Filbert started business life in the purchasing department of Chicago & Northwestern Railway Co. Later he went to the accounting department, became its chief. He has been with Steel since the late great John Pierpont Morgan organized it in 1901. Comptroller since 1902, a director since 1920, a finance committeeman since 1922, he lives quietly in an apartment house on Manhattan's Park Ave., rides the subway to No. 71 Broadway every day. Known as the world's richest clerk, he has successfully fought publicity of any kind. The famed Filbert legend of aloofness was started many years ago by the late great Elbert Henry Gary. Said the Judge, "I have known Filbert--I mean Mr. Filbert--for 35 years as intimately as anybody could know such a man, and I have never been able to find out what that J of the middle initial stands for."*

* Believed to be Julien.

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