UTILITIES: Indianapolis Sold to the Public

Of all boom-inflated U. S. utility holding companies, the most preposterous was not Howard Hopson's Associated Gas & Electric (TIME, March 4) but a smaller pyramid in which Hoppy once had a large voting interest. This was the $400,000,000 fantasy called Utilities Power & Light Corp., put together by a Chicago Christian Scientist and Shakespeare devotee, Harley Lyman Clarke. Crueler than death has been the fate of ex-tycoon Clarke: by 1938 his own lawyer officially admitted he was too poor to be sued. Unlike Hopson (who built up good operating utilities on the...

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