The Big Question

At Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria last week, delegates to the National Association of Manufacturers' 55th annual congress were in an unusually humble mood. Unlike other years, when NAMsters have freely bombarded the Administration, there were only a few stray potshots. In fact, N.A.M. ex-President Ira Mosher thought that the world situation looked so serious that ways had to be found finally to "heal the breach" between Government and business.

Although NAMsters were against the Administration's excess-profits tax, they were ready to go along with a boost in corporate and other taxes. Some of them, notably Lewis H. Brown, Johns-Manville board chairman, talked as tough about taxes as anyone in Washington. He asked for a $25 billion hike to help combat inflation and balance the budget.

Predicting that the federal budget may rise to $75 billion, with $50 billion spent on arms, J.-M.'s Brown declared that "there must [then] be a reasonable equality of sacrifice" to make up the needed new revenue of $25 billion. Said Brown:

"We should demand . . . moderate excise taxes on everything but bare necessities, heavy excise taxes on items that interfere with needed war production; a defense supertax added to the peacetime income taxes of individuals and corporations."

For its new president, N.A.M. elected high-domed William H. Ruffin, 51, president of Durham, N.C.'s Erwin Mills, Inc. He succeeds Claude A. Putnam, president of the Markem Machine Co. in Keene, N.H. President Ruffin was born & bred in Louisburg, N.C., went to work 29 years ago at a weaving machine in Erwin's textile mills and climbed steadily until he became president in 1948. Ruffin, who describes himself as a "moderately large manufacturer," employs 7,400 in his mills, is the first N.A.M. president to come from the soft-goods industry.

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