TRADE: Loft Lift

Jut-jawed Charles G. Guth became a vice president of Loft, Inc. in 1929, immediately began gunning for control of the $13,000,000 candy-&-restaurant chain. At the 1930 stockholders' meeting, a police cordon was needed to keep the scrap verbal. That year Charles Guth collected enough proxies to make himself president. In 1935, embattled President Guth resigned. Instead of ending, the Guth-Loft squabble thereupon entered a new and noisier phase.

Shortly after he joined Loft, Mr. Guth bought control of Pepsi-Cola Co., manufacturers of a dark, sweet soft drink which was then just another of the 1,000-odd aspirants to Coca-Cola's crown. By...