New Crew

In the close-to-the-vest fight for control of New England's biggest railroad, Boston's shrewd, old (82) Frederic C. Dumaine held an impressive hand. Dumaine interests had claimed that they had picked up enough New York, New Haven & Hartford stock to elect eleven of the 16 directors (TIME, May 17). Last week, with a stockholders' showdown meeting still a month off, the opposition folded up. Howard S. Palmer, who, Boston charged, was too close to New York interests, resigned after 14 years as New Haven's president. To make New England's victory over New York complete. Dumaine will move in as board chairman. He gave the job of president to Laurence F. Whittemore, 54, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, a man after Dumaine's tough Yankee heart.

A homespun diplomat with a New Hampshire twang, portly "Whit" Whittemore milked cows as a boy in Pembroke, later tried railroading, sat on the New Hampshire tax commission, and ran. a lumber business. In 1929 he joined the Boston & Maine Railroad, became assistant to the president.

As president of the Federal Reserve Bank (since 1946), he has found time to double in brass as secretary (and traveling salesman) for the New England Council. He likes to preach the greatness of New England industry, and pooh-poohs statistics (which sometimes tell a different tale). At the dingy, church-quiet Federal Reserve Bank he woke things up by providing piped-in music.

In the New Haven, Whittemore will have a road to run on which steam is already up. Palmer did a good job guiding the road through a twelve-year bankruptcy, got it back on its feet with its indebtedness greatly reduced. He also bought most of the 250 diesel engines and 180 streamlined postwar passenger cars (most of them with reclining seats and separate smoking compartments), which make the New Haven one of the most up-to-date roads in the East. A short-haul road with an eye on the passenger business, it ranks tops with New York commuters.

Whittemore will carry the modernization north to New England. One of the issues in the fight for control of the New Haven was Palmer's intention to abandon the money-losing (over $3,000,000 last year) Old Colony branch road from Boston to Cape Cod. Whittemore hopes not only to retain the Old Colony line, but to make it pay by bringing its equipment up to the road's new standards.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.