No Complaints

Joseph Edward Otis Jr. is president of Indiana's Dodge Manufacturing Corp., makers of thousands of small precision parts for ships and planes. Last week, while many another businessman fretted over the strange, uncomfortable new world in which he found himself, smooth-thinking Otis sat down and wrote these muscular, unmincing words to his stockholders:

"Let me emphasize again the abnormality of present conditions. In the last analysis we have but one customer--Uncle Sam. Not only is he our only customer, but through OPA he fixes the prices at which we shall sell; he determines through WPB what materials we shall have and to what customers we shall deliver and when. He controls the wages and salaries we shall pay . . . sets standards of quality for our products; he tells how we shall keep our books and [what] records he requires us to maintain. Finally he takes in taxes about three-quarters of any profit and reserves the right through renegotiation to take away whatever additional amount he sees fit.

". . . These are the new rules of the game. We are playing for high stakes. Let no stockholder or employe complain. . . . For play it we must and win it we will."

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