Business & Finance: Freighters, Too

When, last January, the U. S. Shipping Board announced bids for ships of the United States and the American Merchant Lines, highest bidder was Paul Wadsworth Chapman, who is head of P. W. Chapman. Inc., of Chicago and Manhattan and whom anyone but a newsman can interview at any time. After a wrangle with die-hard government-owning Senators, the Chapman bid was accepted. Last week the Shipping Board opened bids on ships of the American Diamond and the America France Lines, which operate freighters between U. S. and French, Dutch and Belgian ports. Again Bidder Chapman was high. He offered $3,981,343.26 for 18 of the 23 ships in the two lines. This bid figured out at $25.38 a ton; other bids scaled down to as low as $14 a ton. No official acceptance of the Chapman bid was announced, but it appeared not unlikely that American Diamond and America France Lines would follow to where United States and American Merchant Lines had already gone.