Napoleonic Plan No. 2

Edward Napoleon Claughton has another Napoleonic railroad plan. Claughton, holder of one of the largest single blocks of stock in the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Co. ("Katy"), came a cropper with his first plan to control Katy's board of directors (TIME, April 23). He lost out to Katy President Matthew Scott Sloan,* who died a month later. Into his job went a friend of Claughton's, softspoken, malleable Raymond John ("Mike") Morfa, onetime assistant to Allegheny Corp.'s Robert Ralph Young.

With the stage all set, slick, quick Ed Claughton, who also deals in Miami real estate and runs seven Florida movie houses, last week announced that he is increasing his Katy holdings and buying large blocks of stock in both the Chicago & Eastern Illinois and the Chicago Great Western railroads. Claughton's plan: merge the three roads.

The C. & E.I. and the C.G.W. would strengthen the Katy, long financially weak. The combined roads would then have 5,500 miles of track, extending from the Gulf to the Great Lakes. Most important, Katy would get an entry into Chicago and Minneapolis. But even optimistic Ed Claughton knows that any such merger is one to three years away.

* No kin to G.M.'s Alfred P. Sloan.

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