The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1921-08-16
LASKER USES
DASHING ZEAL
IN BIG TASK
Does with Shipping Board as
He Would Do in Private
Business Directness Dis
turbing, Novel to Congress.
TRIES PROVED METHODS
BY MARK SULLIVAN

PUBIC is puzzled ABOUT coming 10 |
judgment on the spectacular contro- |
versy between the Shipping corpora
tion, represented in the courts by the
law firm of which ex-President VIII
son and ex-Secretary of State Colby. |
are principals, that confusion Is not
surprising. Not all the facts and al
legations are public yet.
Mr. Colby promises his contribu-
tion to them shortly. but even after
that reply shall have been made, the
whole set of facts will turn out to be
so complex as to make judgment diff
cult, except to the expert.
Whether there was any technical
defect in the legal methods by which
the shipping board tried to regain pos
session of the governments property,
will be decided by the courts.
Aside from that, on the broader
issue most of us in Washington who
have followed the new chairman dur
ing the eight weeks of his administra-
ton are disposed to justify the agents
Of the government
One important Merit.
Whatever the other merits of the
governments side of the case, it has
what is to Washington observers at
the present moment one supremely
important merit.
What Mr.. Lasker did as chairman
of the shipping board was precisely
what he would have done as a private
litigant If it is desirable to have
more business in government" this
was a worthy beginning on Mr. Las
ker's part He found the property of
t. @F
corporation, which, according to his
account, is in default of its payments,
and in other respects is seriously at
fault in its relations to the govern
ment Believing this, he went after
the governments property with ex-
actly the same headlong directness
with which he would have gone after
his own property under the same cir
cumstapces.
It was a case of business In gov
ernment" in exactly the same mali
ner that Mr.. Lasker would practice
business in his private life.
Successful Man.
Mr. Lasker Is an eminently success
full business man, and his successes in
business in many cases have been
built out of much the same sort of
situation presented by the shipping
board namely taking hold on an enter
prise of difficulties, throwing enorm-
Gus energy into it working Is hours a
day at it, dreaming about it the re-
naming six hours, and finally pulling
it back across the line to prosperity
in the shortest possible time.
Mr.. Lasker goes after success in
whatever business happens at the mo-
ment to be his preoccupation with the
entranced directness of hound in
pursuit of fox.
Mellon Sure, Lasker Dynamic.
There are, of course more varieties
of businessmen than one Secretary
Mellon of the treasury, for example,
is a business man who has come to
great success by building up small or
moribund enterprises slowly and sure
footedly, with great patience over a
long series of years. rather than by
Mr.. Laskers furiously energetic striv.
ing for the quickest possible results
AS between the two methods, Mr.
Lasker's more temperamental person
ality and prodigal pouring out of head
long energy is the better adapted tc
the Job he is now doing for the United
States. The shipping board is prob
ably the biggest experiment in bust
ness, either public or private ever at
tempted. 1t represents a cash invest
ment of some 00.000,000.
Great Deficit
While its books are in a state oi
chaos, it is probably safe to say that
the boards annual deficit is upward
OF $500, 100000. That is a case fol
the kind of quick and drastic action
that is most likely TO be accepted, from
a man OF Mr.. Lasker's personality anG
methods.
The United States most decidedly
has not the disposition to go on with
, this sort of enormously expensive ex
pertinent indefinitely. Mr.. Laskel
has told congress that in six month:
he will be able to see far enough
ahead to be able to tell what he car
do, and has given himself a limit o
two years in which to accomplish re
suits or acknowledge failure.
And congress, on the whole. al
though it finds some of Mr.. Lasker'!
dashing directness disturbingly move
is nevertheless disposed to give hin
his chance and to anticipate success
Insinuation False
The insinuation that there wa
politics in the shipping boards re
cent action and that the ships are be
ing taken from one corporation in or
der to favor another. is merely th
sort Of loose charge that OCCASIONAL.
arises in the smoke of this kind o
controversy.
Mr.. Lasker might be charged witt
hundred faults and mistakes, bu
never with harboring any such picay
une conception as that, of the best US
to make of t he opportunity his ar
pointment has given him for grea
distinction.
Copyright 1921 by the New York
Evening Post, Inc.)