Business & Finance: L. F. Loree

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So ferocious in appearance is Leonor Fresnel Loree, the shaggiest of high railroad executives, that when he makes his rare appearance "hair, mustache and beard awry, thick, bushy brows slanting up from his heavy-lidded eyes" at the New Jersey College for Women or at Rutgers, the young people are always startled. He is a trustee of these institutions, one of the several railroad masters to take interest in academic affairs (see EDUCATION).

Recent months, while the Van Sweringens were trying and failing to effect their Nickel Plate System as a competitor in the East to the New York Central, the Pennsylvania and the B. & O., the country has been watching this man. He was known to control the Delaware & Hudson with its 30-odd affiliated companies in the East. In the Middle West he was chairman of the Kansas City Southern, boss of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (the "Katy") and of the St. Louis Southwestern (the "Cotton Belt"). Of the latter road Edwin Gould was nominally chairman, the last of the Goulds to hold such a position.

Last week he made a swift move, elected himself chairman of the "Katy," then relapsed into his set inscrutability.