Puzzled N. A. M.

Last week the National Association of Manufacturers, since 1895 the voice of U. S. big business, held its 45th Congress of American Industry. It was the best-attended Congress to date. Some 2,500 NAMembers jammed Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria for the final dinner, which was the second biggest dinner* the Waldorf had ever served. Present were enough tycoons to float a national economy. Men like General Motors' Alfred P. Sloan, U. S. Steel's Irving Olds and Ben Fairless, Standard Oil's William Farish, Du Font's Lammot du Pont, Swift's John Holmes, Bethlehem's Eugene Grace, General Electric's Philip Reed, Goodyear's Paul Litchfield were just white ties in a white-tied sea. It was probably the greatest galaxy of industrial power and talent ever gathered in one room.

The tycoons had gone to the dinner to hear William S. Knudsen tell them about the progress of defense. They had in fact been discussing defense for three days. The Congress' theme was "Total Preparedness for America's Future." Laying once and for all the ghostly fable that business is a united front on any subject, the subject of defense found the cream of American industry unable to make up its mind.

Pink-cheeked, scholarly, hard-working President Henning W. Prentis Jr. (Armstrong Cork) expressed the uncertainty in his keynote speech. Pledging industry's support to the defense program, he granted that industry could produce more than it has "if we are, in the opinion of Government, faced with emergency war production." Then, like a Labor M.P. confronting Churchill, he asked the Government to define its defense aims.

From what followed, two things were clear: 1) the U. S. manufacturer is anxious to do his duty, but 2) he has no stomach for war economics. Significant were the results of an Elmo Roper survey of public opinion for N. A. M.: only 10% of the U. S. believes that business is driving the country towards war (only 1% believes the President is doing so). Still fearful of future Nye investigations, still leery of munitions-making, many NAMembers took satisfaction in this low figure.

They did not agree on how much danger the U. S. faces. Lewis W. Douglas of Mutual Life Insurance Co. gave them the interventionist view ("no compromise with oppression, and no covenant with tyranny"), was politely applauded. Sears, Roebuck's General Robert E. Wood argued isolationism, received a spontaneous ovation. As though to duck the dilemma, most speakers belabored N. A. M.'s old, familiar devils: bureaucracy, U. S. fiscal policy, restrictive labor laws. At the session on "Production Aspects of Preparedness," four of the speeches were on labor problems, the fifth on the fifth column. In a round table that touched on plant capacity, Steelman Hook and Oilman Farish both said their industries had enough.

If the war gods found cold comfort at the Congress, the U. S. consumer fared better. Many a speaker insisted that defense needs should not interfere with the production of peacetime goods. General Electric's Reed called for more research, bigger volume, low prices. In its "Platform of American Industry," the Congress adopted the view that the U. S. people can achieve defense "without experiencing a reduction in their standard of living to the extent suffered abroad." Reassuring was the magic show of new products presented by M. I. T.'s Karl Compton: synthetic rubber, cold light, soybean suits, nylon velvet gowns. And Wesley M. Angle, president of Stromberg-Carlson, gave an almost New Dealish view of working hours: "Until we put back to work those of the millions of unemployed who are able to work, I can not see that we should worry or complain about a 40-hour week."

But as NAMembers left for home at week's end, the words that rang in their ears were Bill Knudsen's bleak call for production, production, production. This week, just before he handed the N. A. M. presidency on to Curtis Publishing Co.'s Walter D. Fuller, Henning Prentis' key-note uncertainty was gone. "Now that the manufacturers of the nation have been told the need," said he, their answer is "clear and uncompromising" -- they will produce. First step: an inventory of men and machines, a survey of bottlenecks, in which all NAMembers will be asked to take part.

*Biggest: The Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York in 1933--3,500.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.