Cyrus Eaton

Canadian-born Cyrus Eaton was one of America's most successful industrialists, who helped build up the gas and oil industries but who later grew somewhat critical of the capitalist system, and especially its attitude towards and treatment of organized labor. Born in the small Nova Scotia town of Pugwash, Eaton got his first taste of the the big-business world when he took a job as a clerk with John D. Rockefeller, founder of the Standard Oil Co., in Cleveland while on a break from his studies at Canada's McMaster University. He finished his studies at McMaster in 1905 and returned to Cleveland and took a management job with the East Ohio Gas Co. After a while he left that job and went out on his own, investing in gas and electric utilities. He eventually consolidated his investments in several utilities into the Continental Gas and Electric Co. He became an American citizen in 1913, and a few years later became a partner in a banking firm, Otis & Co. He continued his investments in utilities, and in 1923 he consolidated all of his holdings into the United Power and Light Co. He branched out from the oil and gas industry and began investing in steel and rubber companies, and eventually grouped his holdings in those industries into the Republic Steel Co., which became the third largest steel company in the US. In 1929 he became involved in a fight with the notorious Samuel Insull and his Bethlehem Steel Corp. for control of several financial holdings, and it took a toll on his finances, which, coupled with the effects of the Great Depression, severely weakened his business empire. However, he managed to not only recover but became even more successful, and his holdings increased not only in size but in diversity; at times he was a director or board chairman of an impressive array of banks, mining companies, railroads, coal companies and steel companies, among other industries. His battles with his fellow big-business rivals left him somewhat disillusioned with the capitalist system in general, though, and he wrote several stinging books on it (e.g., "Investment Banking: Competition or Decadence?"). In the 1950s he sponsored an annual "Pugwash Conference"--named after his hometown--of internationally recognized academics and scientists "in an effort to strengthen international understanding and further the solution of world problems through the free exchange of ideas". He also made a special effort to help improve US relations with the Soviet Union, which subjected him to severe criticism in conservative circles in US politics. Nevertheless, his efforts resulted in his being awarded the Lenin Peace Prize by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1960. Cyrus Eaton died in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1979.