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¶By disposing of a large portion of Atlas Corp.'s 6,500,000 shares of Blue Ridge Corp., they profited by selling in Recovery what they had purchased in Depression. Transcontinental & Western Air squeezed $77,000 profit out of the first six months of 1935. It has the shortest coast-to-coast air route and the technical advice of Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, but its proudest possession is a fleet of 29 new, fast (220 m.p.h.) twin-motored planes built by Donald Wills Douglas. Transcontinental was the first air line to use the Douglas plane and in August 1934 inaugurated the first overnight coast-to-coast passenger service. When the Air Mail Act of 1934 prohibited airmail carriers from continuing to be affiliated with each other or with plane-equipment manufacturers there was a general unscrambling of aviation holding companies. TWA stock was, as Lehman Partner Hertz said, "scattered from hell to breakfast." Largest holder became General Motors, with 81,204 shares inherited from North American Aviation. Purchase of this block gave Lehman Bros, and Atlas a 13% interest in TWA. In the absence of other large holders, this interest amounted to control. Purchase price was not specified, but at last week's market the shares were worth about $1,200,000. Radio-Keith-Orpheum went into receivership in January 1933, is now trying to reorganize under Section 776. Last month, Atlas and Lehman bought half of Radio Corp.'s RKO interest (for $5,000,000 cash) and took an option on the rest. Last week David Sarnoff, RKO chairman, resigned; Mr. Aylesworth, RKO president, moved over to the chairmanship, and new President Leo Spitz prepared to change his home from Chicago to Manhattan and his job from the law to the cinema. No cinema producer is dark, dapper, large-eyed Leo Spitz, but he has been connected with cinema theatre chains for 15 years. Born in 1888 on Chicago's Clark Street, he worked as delivery boy in his father's meat & grocery store, handled a Sunday newspaper route on what would otherwise have been his day off. In 1909 he graduated, cum laude, from the University of Chicago with degrees of Doctor of Philosophy and Doctor of Jurisprudence. He took his bar examination just before his 21st birthday but became 21, and therefore eligible to practice, by the time the papers were corrected. In 1912 he rented office space with Henry Horner, now Illinois' Governor. First acquaintance with the theatre came when he handled the legal affairs of Lubliner & Trinz, small Chicago theatre company. In 1925 Lubliner & Trinz was taken over by Balaban & Katz, a much larger operator in the same field, and in 1926 Balaban & Katz was taken over by Paramount. By 1930 Mr. Spitz was director and vice president of Paramount. Mr. Spitz is a bachelor, lives at the Congress Hotel, looks younger than his years. He was nominated for his present job by his friend and Paramount associate, John D. Hertz. Blue Ridge Corp. is an investment trust organized in the summer of 1929 by Waddill Catchings (then of Goldman, Sachs) and Harrison Williams (North American Co.). A typical blossom on the New Economics tree, Blue Ridge was put together just in time to acquire a great many stocks at the top of the 1929 market. Its assets dwindled at the rate of $25,000,000 a year and in 1933 Mr. Odium added it to his collection of Prosperity's withered flowers. In addition to a general