The Whitney Women and the Museum They Made by Flora Miller Biddle

Author:Flora Miller Biddle
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781628728095
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 2017-01-26T05:00:00+00:00

Larry Tisch was our most powerful trustee in the financial world. Compact, with a disproportionately large, balding head, blue eyes, and a serious mien, he was soft-spoken and courteous. His manner was kindly, almost fatherly. Larry asked me to meet with the finance committee; he was chairman. Right after I became president, I agreed, and arranged to go to his office at 666 Fifth Avenue. His office was large but plain. Larry’s desk was altogether clear. He exuded the sort of controlled calm that sometimes accompanies success. The phones on his desk had been silenced. The only sound I heard was the click-clack of the ticker tapes, keeping Larry apprised of stock market transactions the world over.

We must, he began, do something about the Whitney’s endowment. And he explained why. At a time when it was quite possible to double or triple values, the J. P. Morgan bank’s conservative policies had kept the Museum’s money stagnant. Howard, as an outsider aware of our strong family tradition of investing with Morgan, had been reluctant to move the funds. On that day, though, Larry told me that the whole finance committee had advised me, for the sake of the Museum and its need for more income, to take immediate action. Larry, head of the committee, urged the change.

It was up to me.

I was sure he must be right, especially since Morgan’s had not done well with the small trust fund they administered for me. I arranged to see Lewis Preston, then chairman of Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. A small matter for them, I thought. Fifteen or so million, when they deal in billions.

I had always known Lew Preston. Our parents, even our grandparents, had been friends. His stepdaughter, Linda Bartlett, who’d grown up with Lew and her mother, Patsy, after their marriage, was married to my brother, Leverett Miller. Lew cared about my family, about the Museum, and also, of course, about his bank. And he was experienced, intelligent, and moral.

But the bit was in my teeth and I was running with it. My finance committee was smarter than anyone. It had the best interests of the Museum at heart. No chance it could be wrong.

In Lew’s paneled office on Wall Street, I listened to his understated way of addressing issues. His comfortably assured manner, his relaxed humor, our shared background, were wholly familiar. I had grown up with them.

Lew couldn’t have been nicer, but I could tell my plan to move the money distressed him. Well, there was no rush, he said. There was plenty of time to decide. He could help me sort things out. Would I meet with him again? Along with a couple of other bank officers, too, so I could hear their views? Of course I agreed.

But my mind was already made up. Closed, really. I’d never met such brilliant financiers as those on the finance committee. And then, I remembered my small trust fund.

When I reported back to Larry Tisch, he reiterated his arguments, probably to strengthen my resolve.

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