Four Short Years

Though very much of a power in Indiana, George A. Ball, glass-jar tycoon of Muncie, was practically unknown when Oris Paxton Van Sweringen and Mantis James Van Sweringen called upon him in 1935. "0. P." and "M. J." were $50,000,000 in the hole and J. P. Morgan & Co. was about to auction their $3,000,000,000 railroad empire. At the auction George A. Ball bid in the empire for a mere $3,121,000. He was not a railroad man; he bought it for the Vans to run. But within a year the amazing brothers both died. He transferred control to a new philanthropic trust, the George & Frances Ball Foundation, then went hunting for buyers. He found them two years ago in a trio so unknown that no one laughed when they referred to themselves as "babes in the woods." The three: Brokers Robert R. Young and Frank B. Kolbe and a Woolworth company heir, Allan P. Kirby. Mr. Ball sold them 1,933,810 shares (43%) of the common stock in Alleghany Corp., the holding company just below Midamerica. This stock had cost Mr. Ball less than $270,000. He sold it for $4,000,000 cash, plus a $2,375,000 note payable May 5, 1939 and secured by 1,200,000 of the Alleghany shares.

Recession intervened, and Manhattan's Guaranty Trust Co., exercising its rights as trustee for Alleghany's bondholders, blocked Robert Young's plans for reorganizing the Van Sweringen holding companies. Although hardly a week passed without spectacular attacks from Financier Young, Guaranty gradually squeezed him out of practically all say in the management of the railroads.

Last week these adventures of a railroad empire came to a terse conclusion. Thomas H. Jones, lawyer of the George & Frances Ball Foundation, called Cleveland newsmen by long distance from Muncie and announced: "Messrs. Robert R. Young and Allan P. Kirby and their associates have surrendered to the foundation the 1,200,000 shares of Alleghany Corp. common stock held as collateral for their $2,375,000 note, thus revesting to the foundation ownership of such stock." Muncie's spare, bald, 76-year-old George A. Ball was once again master of the 23,000 miles of right of way.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.