Defeat for Wolfson

At a noisy meeting, attended by 2,500 shareholders in Chicago's ornate Medinah Temple last week, Sewell Lee Avery retained control of giant Montgomery Ward & Co., Inc. The proxy showdown found the forces of Louis Wolfson claiming only 2,125,000 shares, against a management claim of 5,400,000. There was little doubt that when the final tally was announced May 13, Wolfson would have no more than three, and possibly only one of the nine seats on the Ward board.

But it was a Pyrrhic victory for Avery, for the meeting did give 43-year-old Challenger Wolfson part of what he had come for: public proof that 81 years had dulled the once razor-sharp mind of Sewell Avery. It would be invaluable ammunition for the onslaught Wolfson plans to make again next year.

The Wolfson forces began relentlessly to hammer Avery with questions from the floor. Desperately, the Ward group tried to shield the old man by putting the chair in the hands of Corporation Secretary John Barr. But Wolfson stockholders insisted on answers from Avery himself, and the old man, lost in the clangor of shareholders' cowbells and the booming of loudspeakers, seemed confused, often crying out, "I can't hear."

Once, Avery launched into a disjointed discourse that rambled on for 27 minutes. A stockholder wanted to know why President Edmund Krider was being retained in view of Ward's steady profit drop. Avery turned away in bewilderment, searching for the voice out of the loudspeakers. "Turn him around." someone howled. Avery struggled for his bearings, turned back and pleaded: "I can't hear that at all. What's the purpose?" (Avery's daughter, Mrs. Rogers Follansbee, a spectator at the meeting, wept.)

At one point, his purpose accomplished, Louis Wolfson rose, oozing charity, and asked an end to the bull-baiting. "It seems that Mr. Avery is not in a position today to conduct this meeting," he said. "I will appreciate it if you will accept Mr. Barr as chairman." Then, in an aside, Wolfson told reporters: "This is the greatest corporate fraud ever perpetrated."

After the preliminary tallying showed that he had won, reporters asked Avery whether he would now retire. Slowly and deliberately, Avery turned and replied: "Being a very old man, and still having a kick or two in me, I haven't devoted any time to that puzzle."

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