profit but which provided Blyth Witter with a reputation for honesty and steady business sense. Blyth Witter prospered in the 1920s, expanding with branch offices as distant as Chicago. Blyth Witter financed Holt Manufacturing Company, and helped in the merger Holt and Best to become Caterpillar Inc. Blyth and Witter disagreed about expanding further on the East Coast, so Witter sold his shares back to the company, and with his brother and cousin, formed Dean Witter & Co. Blyth subsequently opened a branch office in London in 1925, and he helped finance the Carquinez Bridge. The Russ Building skyscraper was paid for by Blyth, and when it opened in 1927 the Blyth firm moved its offices there. In 1928, Blyth bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, and was mentioned in The Wall Street Journal for the first time. Roy Shurtleff, newly a millionaire from his Blyth stock, managed the company's offices. Shurtleff was concerned about the branch offices taking too much initiative in buying stocks, so he traveled to each one in 1929, directing the company to sell off a total of $7 million worth of the least promising, most speculative accounts. This action by Shurtleff made the difference for Blyth & Co. in October when the Wall Street Crash of 1929 hit—Blyth suffered severe losses but survived. In the 1930s during the Great Depression, Blyth's business was hurt because far fewer bonds were being offered; companies were not borrowing money. The company's officers greatly reduced their salaries. Still, Blyth was a major source of funding for the Golden Gate Bridge, along with A. P. Giannini of the Bank of America. Politics Blyth was an influential supporter of the Republican Party. He financed the political campaign of Earl Warren during his successful 1942 bid to become Governor of California. Blyth expected Warren to allow him to determine the appointments to public utility positions so that the Blyth investment company would be assured of California's bond trade. Warren gave the bond business to a lower bidder, so Blyth subsequently worked to elect Goodwin Knight as Warren's replacement. Knight finally became governor in 1953 when Warren resigned to become Chief Justice of the United States. Clubs and society Blyth helped fund America's two great war drives by serving as chairman of the Liberty Loan effort in Northern California during World War I, then in World War II he chaired