Background
Hutton was born in Manhattan, New York City, in 1875. He was the son of James Laws Hutton, a farmer.
Hutton was born in Manhattan, New York City, in 1875. He was the son of James Laws Hutton, a farmer.
He left public school at fifteen and worked briefly as a "grease monkey" in Kingston, N. Y. He then resumed his schooling at the New York Latin School and Public School 69, where he became friendly with Bernard Baruch, an older classmate. Later he attended Trinity Chapel School.
In 1892, Hutton took a job as a mail boy for a Wall Street mortgage company at $5 per week. He was fired after a year for taking an unauthorized vacation. His next position was as a writer of checks for Manhattan Trust Company. His poor penmanship reportedly led the firm's president, John I. Waterbury, to recommend that he go to night school to improve his handwriting. Offended, Hutton resigned. He learned shorthand at night at Packer's Business College and privately studied finance and economics as well. In 1895 Hutton helped form, and became a partner in, Harris, Hutton and Company, stockbrokers. The firm reportedly purchased membership in the old Consolidated Stock Exchange (which dealt exclusively in odd lots) for $375.
When the firm was dissolved in 1901, Hutton persuaded his uncle, William E. Hutton, of Cincinnati, to open a New York City branch of his brokerage firm. He became the resident partner and a member of the New York Stock Exchange. Hutton organized his own brokerage house, E. F. Hutton and Company, in 1904. He was senior partner until 1921 and a special partner from then until his death. The business grew rapidly, and at one point held memberships in the New York, American, Pacific Coast, Midwest, Boston, Salt Lake City, and New Orleans stock exchanges, and in eighteen commodity exchanges. It was the first firm to operate a securities wire to the West Coast.
At the request of Colby M. Chester, Postum's treasurer, Hutton took a leave of absence from his brokerage firm and joined the cereal manufacturer in 1921. He was elected the unsalaried chairman of the board of directors in April 1923. With Chester, who became president, Hutton revitalized the company and brought about the merger of fifteen food and grocery manufacturing companies. The Postum name was changed to General Foods Corporation in 1929. In 1935 he resigned as chairman of General Foods.
In 1949 Hutton founded the Freedoms Foundation (at Valley Forge, Pa. ), which was dedicated to maintaining the "indivisible political and economic freedoms" inherent in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The foundation gives awards to organizations and individuals who promote patriotic ideals. At various times Hutton was chairman and director of Zonite Products and director of Chrysler, Manufacturers Trust, and Coca-Cola.
He died at Westbury, N. Y.
A lifelong Republican, Hutton was a staunch supporter of President Herbert Hoover. In the early New Deal years he was strongly critical of the Roosevelt administration, and in November 1935 attracted nationwide attention by calling upon American industry to "gang up" against the administration. He later modified this position somewhat, claiming that his attitude toward the New Deal had become less hostile. Hutton was an enthusiastic proponent of Americanism and the free-enterprise system, and an opponent of communism. He took out full-page newspaper advertisements to promote patriotism, advance constitutional government, sing the praises of capitalism, and combat communism. An October 1947 ad in the New York Times read in part: "Please, God, as a prayer, may we never accept any foreign 'ism' – totalitarianism, collectivism – for Americanism. " From 1953 to 1960 Hutton wrote a syndicated column, "Think It Through, " for the New York Herald Tribune and some sixty other newspapers. The column voiced objection to government "meddling" in American business. It was his consistent theme that the federal government was becoming too big and too paternalistic.
Hutton married Blanche Horton, who died in 1918. Their son died two years later. On July 7, 1920, he married Marjorie Merriweather Post Close, daughter and heir of Charles W. Post, founder of Postum Cereal Company. They had one daughter, who became the actress Dina Merrill. Hutton's marriage to Marjorie Post Close ended in divorce in August 1935. In 1936 he married Dorothy Dear Metzger.