Evening star., 1936-04-03
BY IRA WOLFERT.

PRINCETON, N. j., April 8 (N.A.
NA.).-"Gentlemen the grave voice
says, "the Board Of Directors OF the
Tiger Cotton Textile Co. is in session" !"
The members of the board tap to-
bacco deep into the bowls Of their
fancy-shaped pipes, hook thumbs in
vests, stretch legs, wrinkle brows over
the wildly flung clouds of tobacco
smoke.
Gentlemen" the grave voice con-
tinues, Mr.. B. M. Gordon, secretary
of the National Association OF Cotton
Manufacturers, has consented to offer
us the benefit Of his experience and
study in helping US to determine
whether we shall borrow $500,000 to
replace obsolescent machinery in our
one remaining mill or, by immediate
liquidation, salvage what equity is
now recoverable for the stockholders" !"
These are sepulchral words and they
lie heavily in the air of Whig Hall
here as Mr.. Gordon rises and moves
forward to take the central place at
the long, cloth-covered conference
table. He is ruddy checked boy,
serious under his cowlicks and push
ing fretfully at a stubborn tongue of
hair which keeps Hopping over his
right eye.
New Classroom Scene.
For. while the high-sounding titles
are all there and the conference table
Is impeccably official and the air
crackles with words like "active spin
dies" unit COSTS" psychic income"
etc, etc, this Is not really meeting
of any Board of Directors. It's a
Princeton University classroom of the
School of Public and International Al
fairs and the boys going through their
little make-believe are taking part in
a program of education which is de-
signed to fit them ito enter public life
or international business or affairs
or simply fit them to be good citi-
zens. Practically, however, it is
Princeton's answer to hard-headed
business men who complain that a
college education puts mans head
in the clouds and blinds him to the
realities of the business world.
Started five years ago as an expert
ment with Dr. De Witt Clinton Poole
at its head and an advisory board
that included Chief Justice Charles
Evans Hughes, Owen D. Young, chair
man of the board of General Elec-
trio, and John w. Davis, once the
Democratic nominee for President, the
school has forged steadily ahead, more
than doubling its enrolment. which is
selected from the top tenth OF the
sophomore class.
The really novel feature Of the
school-which is an integral part OF
the university-is the so-called con
ference on public affairs" in which
five public problems are selected each
year for Laboratory" investigation by
the students. The boys are organized
into committees and made to work,
saws DR.. Poole, under conditions
which approximate those of actual
political and business life" Hence
the meeting of The Board of Direc-
tors of the Tiger Cotton Textile Mill. .
Students form the board and the stu
dents are the various experts" called
in to furnish specific information Oh
the various phases of the problem put
before the board. which, in this case,
was whether it would be wiser to stay
In or go out of business.
Expert Testimony Required.
The expert testimony required in
this problem was supplied by the fol-
lowing high-sounding list of students:
THE secretary of the National As
sociation of Cotton Manufacturers"
who cited the handicaps under which
New England was laboring in its COM
petition with the South's cheap, unor-
ganized labor.
THE president Of the New England
Textile Service, Inc, who was very
firm in his belief that not even mod
erniZation of the mills machinery
would guarantee it q profit in "a
market cursed with overproduction. 4"
Superintendent of the MILL" who
was both witty and eloquent in urging
the case for modernization and the
installation of the "stretch-out" and
''speed-up" and discussed the ways to
circumvent the opposition of unionized
labor to both.
The company's lawyer" whose job
It was to discuss the processing tax
and explain the reasons for the manu-
facturer's inability to hand it on to
the consumer as he had been ex-
pected to.
The company's "sales agent" who