Co. v. Corp.

A corporation is a company and a company is a corporation, but in the official names of industrial establishments, Co. and Corp. should never be confused. Last week in Brooklyn many a stockholder in a Curtiss-Wright Aeronautical Co. thought himself wealthy, discovered himself tricked. He had bought (at from $25 to $30 a share) stock in Curtiss-Wright Aeronautical Co. He knew that Curtiss and Wright were famed aviation names, were also famed aviation companies. He knew also that Clement Melville Keys' Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Co. had merged with Richard F. Hoyt's Wright Aeronautical Corp. Obvious was the conclusion that his stock represented the merger of the great air companies with the great air names.

Investigation (conducted by Deputy Assistant Attorney-General Francis J. Quillinan) demonstrated that the only connection between the (Keys-Hoyt) Curtiss-Wright Corp. and the Curtiss-Wright Aeronautical Co. was in the misleading similarity of the names. Organizers of Curtiss-Wright Aeronautical Co. had located (or invented) an airplane mechanic named Curtiss Wright, had christened their company after him. Assets, other than the name, were small. Stock-sale profits, however, should have been considerable. According to the Attorney-General's office, stock was optioned to Broker Cyrus Brin for 66^ a share, reoptioned to Broker H. D. Strahman at $1.25 a share, sold to the public at the $25,130 figure. The company was ordered to change its name and the broking firm of Strahman, Walsh & Brin, Manhattan, was enjoined from further sale of its stock.