Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-04-21
BUSINESS LEADERS
BLAMED INFA|LURE
Those Who Proclaimed Ability
to Guide Hit Because They
|. Aren't Making Good.
BY JOHN r. SINCLAIR.

Here are some interesting excerpts from
an address made by Walter S. Clifford,
46, president of the American Telephone
& Telegraph Co., at the annual meet
ing of the Associated Press in New York
yesterday.
IF. as has been said, a fundamental
cause of the depression is greed, who
are they who did not add their part
to the picture?"
This is a democracy of blame.
Fixing the blame is the occupation of
those who have lost their nerve.
Finding the causes and planning the
future Is the part for constructively
minded people"
I'VE have those with us who want
to return to the good old times.
Then there are those who shout from
the housetops that if we do not take
their particular medicine the bolsheviks
will get us. These people are AL
wrong. >"
THE experiences of this depression
have done more to confirm that faith
tin American democracy than the boom
that preceded it."
Perhaps SO, but
l. The present depression has i'm
paired faith in American democracy IN
direct proportion to the weakness and
ineptness revealed by American BOOM
business leaders. American democracy
reserves a better faith than its bust
ness and political leadership has
given it.
2. It is not the planners" who have
lost their nerve, but the business and
political leaders, who, a short while
back, were proclaiming their ability to
guide, but now are unable to, make
good.
8. The good old times are not what
people are demanding, but the dawn OF
the good new times. Where Is the
business and political leadership that
will roll up its sleeves and provide these
good times?
4. The bolsheviki may not get us,
but something else will If American
democracy doesn't wake up speedily
and employ some planned economic
and social intelligence.
James C. Stone, So, chairman of the
Federal Farm Board and prominent
tobacco merchant, speaks thus Of the
congestion in cotton and tobacco:
"I have emphasized the reduction OF
cotton and tobacco acreage because
such action Is the first essential TO an
Improvement in conditions"
Mr.. Stone ought to know! A grad
uate of Central University OF Rich
mond, Va. he early entered the tobacco
business in Louisville, KY. Later he
became director of the Lexington To-
bacco Warehouse Co.
In 1917, not yet 40 years old, he held
the star role in the organization Of the
Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative
Association, an institution boaSting OF
over 100000 members and handling
$50 900 900 worth of business yearly.
Then the Government decided to put
him In the harness. He was appointed
vice chairman of the Federal Farm
Board. When Alexander Legge quit.
following the debacle Of the wheat
sterilization dream, Mr.. Stone took the
reins This background weighs his
words with solid experience.
There can be no question that Mr..
Stone is right in combating the penny
wise and pound foolish attitude OF
Southern planters on acreage reduction.
Drawing on the lessons Of his own
activities he proclaims the wisdom OF
cooperative control for growers Of all
farm products, including both cotton
and tobacco.
"The cure for unemployment is
work."
This sentence is the one Dean Dom
ham. So, head Of the Harvard School
of Business Administration, uses re-
peatedly throughout his excellent new
book, Business Adrift."
A driftless business structure means
q breakdown of capitalism, he says. He
wants a rational, well thought out,
practical business plan adopted in the
United States in the future.
Two lessons. at least, we should
learn from the Soviet government" says
this Harvard man. First, the value
and necessity of a general plan. and,
second, the importance in such plan
of general philosophy of our relation
ship to civilization"
Dean Donham reiterates time and
time again that behind any successful
plan there must be a sound social phil
osopfy, or I'VE shall, through uncon-
scious mistakes in the use of our great
power destroy western CIVILIZATION.
It's one of the most thoughtful OF
the new business books and written by
a man who, after many years spent in
banking and business, Withdrew from
active business to the more scholarly
and reflective atmosphere of the deans
house at Harvard University.
Automobiles kill without compunc-
ton! You cannot appeal TO their con-
science-even the drivers conscience is
useless when the car runs amuck. But
we can try to reduce or remove their
murderous qualities by mechanical con-
trolls.
That is the purpose of the non-glar-
ing headlight equipment just approved
by the New York State Motor Vehicle
Bureau. Universal adoption of this new
blindness protector" will go far to cut
down the country's appalling auto NOR
talities
Public opinion should compel the ma
t.on-wide adoption of these safeguards
to pedestrians. Auto killings, like all
murder by machines, are insidious and
terrible because they are not spectac-
ular. Thousands of deaths from an
earthquake in a large American city
would terrify the populace, but they are
unimpressed with a greater total that
accumulates with deadly regularity day
after day in the industrial centers and
on the highways Of the Nation.
Slaughter on the battlefield shocks
us, but We are callous TO or ignorant
of greater menace lin toll of lifeD
that stalks through our mechanical
civilization. It not only kills our fell
low citizens, but levies an enormous
tax in waste, material and human, on
our national pocketbook. Its existence
merely teStifies TO our failure to COM
prehend the machine age we live in.
H Parker Willis, editor of the Jour
nal Of Commerce, and julius Klein,
AS jistant Secretary of Commerce. size
up Americas chances in foreign trade
in different ways.
Julius Klein, noting the pickup in
American imports and exports at the
end of the years first quarter, feels
that the necessity Of restocking on the
part Of retailers has begun TO create a
demand for manufactured products.
This will increase American importa-
tions and give our foreign markets
added buying power for American ex-
ports. He admits it will be a slow proc
eSs. but sure one
Dr. Willis. on the other hand. sees