Old Missoula

GRANT M’GREGOR HAS MONEY PLAN

University Alumnus Produces New Economic Theory Abroad.

When, and if, the world’s industrial economics is rewritten, a Montana man may do the job.

The two recent books of A. G. (Grant) McGregor, consulting engineer of London, Eng., are said to be providing the basis for the most refreshing economic thought engaging governmental leaders in Great Britain and America.

McGregor, now in charge of smelter design and construction for the Rhodesia Selection Trust, is peculiarly a Montana product, it was learned at the State University today. His professional degree, B. Sc., was accorded by the University engineering school in 1902. After graduation from the University, McGregor went to Anaconda and joined the engineering staff of the Anaconda Copper Mining company, where he remained seven years and became an expert on smelter design and construction. Later he went into the great copper fields of the Southwest and became recognized as an outstanding mining and smelter engineer, achieving world-wide recognition.

His mechanical inventions relating to mining processes and his smelters are refining metals throughout the world, and the Peruvian deposits of copper are being utilized by means of smelters he constructed. More recently, he has turned to developing mining resources in Rhodesia, establishing independent offices in London.

In Two Books.

When the world-wide business depression set in, McGregor explains, curtailment of industrial operations caused him to seek the causes of depression and the remedy for them. The results of his study he has announced in his two books.

The most recent book, “Lasting Prosperity,” is said to be under the careful scrutiny of Donald Richberg of the National Recovery Advisory Board at Washington and of the Brookings Institute.

The crux of McGregor’s economic theory, as explained in an address on “The Economy for Prosperity” before the North Devonshire Chamber of Commerce, is: Raise all wages and salaries by government decree.

His theory condemns interference with free competition in industry and is predicated upon the ground that there will not be over-supply as long as there is ample consumer demand. As wages and prices increase, he holds, margin of profit over cost of production dwindles in percentage but grows in volume. The present glut of inactive capital surplus, he maintains, is due to lack of incentive for investment, and not due to lack of currency. In fact, McGregor asserts that there is no significant relationship between the quantity of money and the activity of its turnover in industry.

Rising wages, the theory finds, tend to balance increased industrial output. Once a satisfactory balance of supply and demand is created through government decree of wage-increases, McGregor asserts it becomes a governmental function to so manipulate currency values as to maintain that balance.

Explanations Are Made.

Elaborate explanations of the various steps toward his conclusions are made by the author.

McGregor grew up in Western Montana. His father, a minister at Stevensville, came to America from Scotland at the age of 22 and for a considerable period lived in the Bitter Root valley. Later the family lived on Madison street in Missoula, and it was while living here that young McGregor worked his way through the University – part of his work being at Bonner. He was married in 1905 to Miss Beulah M. Morgan of Missoula.

Young McGregor’s introduction to economics was given by Dean J. M. Hamilton, who occupied the chair of economics at the University. Letters from Bozeman show that the State College dean of men, like the many friends here of “Grant” McGregor, is interested in developments from the new “economy for prosperity.”

 

The above article appeared in The Missoulian on October 21, 1934.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/352077685/?terms=mount%2Bsentinel%2Bmining

 

A. G. ‘Alexander Grant’ McGregor is largely overlooked in Missoula’s history. Whether his reputation suffered because of his political theories, or because of his writing, is beyond the scope of this article. His name does not even appear on the long list of The University of Montana’s distinguished alumni. Raised in Stevensville and Missoula, he graduated from U of M in 1902 in Mechanical Engineering and proceeded to become one the world’s leading smelting engineers. Examples of his work appeared throughout the world, including S. America and S. Africa. The January 1918 edition of the magazine, ‘Journal of Electricity’, is dedicated to A. G. McGregor for his “giant accomplishments in the great Southwest.”

‘Grant’ McGregor married another U of M student, Beulah M. Morgan in Missoula in 1905. She was a teacher in Missoula at that time, while Grant was employed by Anaconda Copper Mining Company in Anaconda, Mt. They later lived in various places until the late 1920’s when Beulah settled in Westwood Village, a fashionable Los Angeles suburb, apparently after a divorce. Beulah was a niece of a well-to-do Helena family, the James P. Porter’s. The McGregor’s were parents of four sons.

McGregor then married Harriet Rankin Sedman in London, England in 1935. She was a Missoula native and a sister of Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin. Harriet Rankin married Oscar Sedman in Missoula in 1907. They were parents of two children. Oscar died of pneumonia in Bisbee, Arizona in 1917 while employed there in the mining profession. The McGregor’s also lived in Arizona at that time. A. G. was a prominent investor in Warren, Arizona in 1917. He was credited with designing the huge copper smelter at Miami, Az which was completed in 1915. It was feted as the second largest copper smelter in the United States.

Both of McGregors’ wives, Beulah M. Morgan and Harriet Rankin Sedman, were friends in Missoula before Beulah’s marriage to him. Each of their families, as well as A. G.’s, lived in Missoula’s Madison Street area. Harriet and Beulah were two young teachers in Missoula’s Whittier School in 1904. Among several other prominent grade school Missoula teachers at the time were Minnie Spurgin (a lifelong friend of Beulah Morgan McGregor) and Margaret Ronan. This author’s paternal grandmother, Margaret Berry, was also listed that year as a teacher at Hell Gate. Harriet attended the University of Montana and graduated with her brother, Wellington, in the class of 1903.

Harriet Rankin Sedman returned to Missoula after the death of her husband, Oscar, and was appointed dean of women at the University of Montana in 1921, the position she held until her marriage to Grant McGregor in 1935. She was also a professor in the department of education after earning a Master’s Degree in 1930. She had been Jeannette Rankin’s secretary while she held office in Congress and also worked at the Bureau of War Risk Insurance.

Harriet died in Washington D. C. at age 96 in 1979.

Alexander Grant McGregor died in London, England in 1949 from a stroke.