Bull Session in Atlantic City

In the Claridge Hotel, Atlantic City's newest and tallest, an unprecedented two-day bull session took place last week. Business, labor and agriculture, as represented by 53 delegates out of the top drawer of 16 national organizations, met to thrash out, in closed session, an "area of agreement" on national postwar policies.*

In a spirit of sweet reasonableness that was news in itself, these diverse--and often dissident--interests agreed that when, as in the past, "each one of the various groups tended to concentrate on their own interests . . . [they] tended to paralyze each other rather than to utilize each other." Two days was too short a time for them to get specific--at least for the record. They fluffed off the Baruch report on transition problems (see below) with a this-needs-further-study statement. But publicly they agreed with the Baruch report's major premise that free enterprise can and must win the peace. "The session was unanimous and emphatic," said the final statements to the press, "in agreeing that the objective of conversion and control relaxation shouldbe to restore the economy as speedily as practicable to self control by the voluntary cooperation of the important economic groups which compose it. ... Socialization of business and a Government-planned economy for the nation must be avoided."

Perhaps most significant for the long term was that the 16 groups agreed to meet regularly, at two-month intervals, from now on.

*The 16 organizations were called together by the National Association of Manufacturers, came at their own expense. They included the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce, American Bankers Association, American Farm Bureau Federation, A.F. of L., American Legion, Association of American Railroads, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Committee for Economic Development, C.I.O., Investment Bankers Association, Kiwanis International, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, National Foreign Trade Council, National Grange, Rotary International.

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