CORPORATIONS: Chicago Rebellion

Nobody was apt to think of leftish James George Patton, the big, hard-working president of the Farmers Union, as a director of a $300 million corporation. And the notion that Jim Patton would sit on the same board of directors with Montgomery Ward & Co.’s labor-baiting Sewell L. Avery was even more incongruous. But for a little while last week it looked as if these incongruities might come to pass.

In Chicago at the annual meeting of Montgomery Ward & Co. stockholders, Jim Patton was the candidate of a large group of stockholders who disapprove of Avery’s unbending defiance of the National War Labor Board, and were out in proxy-collecting force for Sewell Avery’s scalp. But in the final showdown Sewell Avery won handsomely. Dazzled by a 60% jump in profits before taxes for the first quarter of this year ($12.6 million v. 1944-3 $7.9 million), some of the rebellious stockholders thoughtfully laid aside their tomahawks. Final score: Rebel Patton: 1.8 million votes; Sewell Avery’s slate of directors: 3.7 million.