bought the New York firm of Robinson
& Co., a descendant of the firm Fisk &
Robinson and joined the New York Stock
Exchange. According to The Los Angeles
Times, it was “the first instance of a Pacific
Coast house entering the New York mar-
ket through the acquisition of the business
of a New York Stock Exchange House.”
Unfortunately, the expansion was orga-
nized right before the Crash of 1929. It was
also unsuccessful for management reasons
and quickly became undone.
In 1930, the firm’s floor member, James
H. McGean, was suspended from the New
York Stock Exchange for three years for
“failing to exercise due diligence in prevent-
ing improper transactions in the shares of
the Manhattan Electrical Supply Company
by a customer through one of the firm’s
branch offices.” McGean was similarly sus-
pended from the New York Curb Exchange.
Emil Sutro, Gustav Sutro’s son, was also
suspended for three months from associ-
ate membership on the New York Curb
Exchange. The eastern partners, most of
whom had entered the firm through or after
the Robinson & Co. acquisition, retired from
the firm. Sutro & Co. also closed its Oakland
office and coast branches, keeping only its
Los Angeles and San Francisco offices. That
year Charles Sutro also retired, and he died
of a heart attack the following year.
Charles Sutro was succeeded as senior
partner by Sidney L. Schwartz, a Univer-
sity of California, Berkeley graduate and
California native who had joined the firm
in 1906. The son of William Schwartz,
a commission merchant and German
immigrant, Schwartz was a nephew of
Gustav S. Sutro’s daughter, Helen Sutro
Schwartz, who married Samuel Schwartz,
a merchant in the importer firm of Easton
& Schwartz, in 1897. Samuel Schwartz
became a partner in Sutro & Co in 1898.
When the firm was reorganized in 1931,
Sidney Schwartz led the firm with partners
Gustav Sutro Schwartz, Allan Browning
Lane, Arthur N. Selby, Emil Sutro, Frank
F. Hargear, George M. Lowry, Randolph
C. Walker, Howard Greene and Albert
B. Sprott. Allan Browning Lane was the
son-in-law of Alfred S. Gump, Sidney
Schwartz’s uncle. (Gump had been a part-
ner in S.&G. Gump Co., an art firm in
San Francisco). Lane had formerly been a
member of F.J. Lisman, a New York bond
dealer, but he joined Sutro & Co. in New
York after he married Gump’s daughter.
In 1934, Lane and Walker tried “to
Sutro Tunnel Company stock certificate, dated May 1872.
overthrow the Schwartz management and
install Hargear as the managing part-
ner.” This move was unsuccessful, and
Lane left the firm. His capital in the firm
was replaced by several limited partners:
Alfred F. Meyer, who later became a gen-
eral partner; his brother, Julian J. Meyer,
who later withdrew from the firm; and
Alice Schwartz, Sidney Schwartz’s wife.
Soon after, Emil Sutro, Albert Sprott and
R.C. Walker also retired. Helen and Sam-
uel Schwartz’s son, Gustav Sutro Schwartz,
became ill and went to Tahiti to try to
recover his health, but he passed away in
1935 at the age of 36.
In the post-war period, as the older gen-
eration of Sutro family partners continued
to pass on, the firm added partners in part
through the acquisition of other firms and
expanded by developing new departments
in the firm. In 1942, Sutro & Co. bought
the San Jose firm of Buchanan & Co., and
Herbert Buchanan, Carl Ellithrope and
Ellithrope’s son-in-law, Harvey White,
joined the firm. In 1949, Robert Harter,
a vice president of First Boston Corpo-
ration, became a partner of the firm in
order to direct the underwriting depart-
ment, which began to grow steadily in
importance in the firm. In 1953, the firm
opened a mutual fund department under
the direction of John Hoyt. Four years
later, the firm merged with the San Fran-
cisco firm of Edwin D. Berl & Sons, and
Edwin Berl, Warren Berl and John D. Berl
joined as general partners. Throughout
these changes, Sidney Schwartz remained
28 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Fall 2018 | www.MoAF.org
the senior partner.
In 1959, when Schwartz became a lim-
ited partner and stepped down from active
management, he was succeeded by Alaistair
Cameron Hall, the first senior partner who
was not related to the founders. Born in
Scotland, Hall was educated in Edinburgh.
Also known as “Shorty,” Hall had been the
senior partner of A.C. Hall & Co., a firm
based in the Philippines. Hall had moved to
the Philippines from Scotland in 1924. He
formed his firm in 1933 and also served as
the president of the Manila Stock Exchange.
During World War II, Hall was a pris-
oner in the Santo Tomas prison camp.
After the war, he returned to business and
in 1951 founded Hall, Picornell, Ortigas &
Co. in Manila, which became a Sutro &
Co. correspondent. (Sutro & Co. had con-
ducted business in the Philippines since
1912 when it participated in a syndicate
that bought an estate on the Island of
Luzon, where it built a sugar mill. The firm
also had a correspondence office in Hawaii
in 1892.) In 1953, Hall decided to leave the
Philippines and settled in San Francisco.
In 1954, Hall left retirement and became a
Sutro & Co. partner. He naturalized as an
American citizen the following year.
Sutro & Co., Inc. (1970)
In 1970, when Sutro & Co. announced that
it was incorporating, Hall became chair-
man of the board. Stating that the decision
“was a question of growth and efficiency,”
the firm announced, “The growth pattern