Morgan-Rockefeller

To the Board of Directors of Columbia Gas & Electric Corp. there were added last week Floyd Leslie Carlisle and Christy Payne. Mr. Carlisle is chairman of Niagara Hudson and of New York Edison and a director of United Corp. He has recently come to be regarded as personifying the public utility interests of the House of Morgan. Mr. Payne is not only a director of Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey), but is also the particular New Jersey director who watches over the extensive natural gas interests of the old Rockefeller company. Thus when Mr. Carlisle and Mr. Payne shake hands across the Columbia directors table, the act may be highlighted as a Morgan-Rockefeller association of interests.

Last month Columbia and Standard agreed to cooperate in the development of the Tioga, Pa. gas fields, Columbia holding about 30% and Standard more than 50% of the Lycoming United Natural Gas Corp., which is the holding company for operating units in the Tioga territory. Last week, accompanying the announcement of the new directors, Columbia said that Standard had acquired a 30% interest in Columbia's new Kentucky-Pennsylvania pipe line network, designed to supply Washington, D. C. and other Atlantic seaboard cities from Newark to Richmond.

Logical enough is the Columbia-Standard community of interest, as the two companies have long dominated the Appalachian gas fields and together control some 9,000,000 gas-producing acres extending from Lake Erie to southern Kentucky. Columbia is also negotiating with Samuel Insull for joint action in supplying mid-western cities now served by the Middle West Utilities (Insull) Co. A Standard-Insull combination already exists in the famed Amarillo-to-Chicago pipe line. Thus the gas industry briskly follows the co-operative policy which became conspicuous as long ago as July 1930, when United Corp. acquired a 25% interest in Columbia and Columbia's Philip Green Gossler became a United Corp. director just as Mr. Carlisle has now joined the directorate of the Gossler company.

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