Trans-Continental

About 25 years ago Cyrus Stephen Eaton's father-in-law introduced him to George Taylor Bishop, a Clevelander who had done well in utilities. Mr. Eaton was given a desk in the Bishop office. From that desk he rose to the great financial heights which made him one of the most powerful industrialists in the U. S. When he had to resign as chairman of Continental Shares, Inc. (TIME, May 4), his nephew, W. Russell Burwell, resigned as president. The new president is George Taylor Bishop, long a tutor, always a friend of Mr. Eaton.

President Bishop is 67, tall, heavyset, with twinkling brown eyes which peer from beneath black bushy eyebrows. In 1881, with a common school education and a course in accounting, he went to work in the general offices of Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Rr. (later New York Central). At the age of 24 he was made general agent for Toledo, St. Louis & Kansas City Ry. Ten years later he started his utility career by building the Fort Worth-Dallas interurban line, first in Texas. He has an interest in many utility companies now and one of his most important positions is the presidency of Frontier Corp., the dupont-Aluminum Co. power project in the St. Lawrence.

Yet despite his prominence, Mr. Bishop's new job brings him out of what in reality is semiretirement. He has been living in Macedonia (15 miles southwest of Cleveland) on his farm at Northwoods, where his ancestors settled about

100 years ago. There he has a big rambling white house of early American architecture, 100 pleasant acres of woods and orchards. He does not care much for social life, stays up late, reading. He is married, has no children. He speaks slowly, approaches a drawl, grins frequently.

Mr. Bishop always took a deep interest in Mr. Eaton's career. It was he who brought about the meeting between Mr.

Eaton and Charles Otis which led to Mr. Eaton's partnership in Otis & Co. in 1915. As Mr. Eaton attained more and more power and wealth, Mr. Bishop kept a fatherly interest in the spectacular trend of events. Last week he must have deeply lamented the irony in the fact that the chief of his duties at present is in dealing with the numerous law suits which Mr. Eaton's management of Continental Shares brought forth.

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