Evening star., 1942-11-20
Trade Board Speaker
Sees Peace as TEST
For Private Enterprise
Leo M. Cherne Addresses
Businessmen; Graham
Pleads for War Fund

With the coming of peace, private
enterprise In America will face its
most critical challenge, Leo M.
Cherne, executive secretary of the
Research Institute of America, Inc,
told the Washington Board OF Trade
at its monthly meeting at the VIII
lard Hotel last night.
TT will very literally be do or die
for the private enterprise system" I"
Mr.. Cherne declared. IT know that
facing facts, especially facts like
these, is not a popular pastime, but
we are talking about survival and
the responsibilities that survival
entails.
IF private enterprise does not
have the brains, the imagination,
vigor and resourcefulness to accept
that responsibility, then, frankly,
does 1t deserve to survive?"
Mr.. Cherne contended that cit
may seem paradoxical, but it is true
that private enterprise can continue
to be private only If it recognizes
its social responsibilities If it
enlarges its own interests to in
clude those of the community in
which 1t lives"
Graham Pleads for War Fund.
Edwin c. Graham, general chair
man Of the Community War Fund,
urged members of the Board of
Trade to redouble their efforts to
complete the quota. An account of
Mr.. Graham's talk appears in the
War Fund story on Page Al.
Lanier P. McLachlen, president of
the Board of Trade, backed Mr..
Graham's plea, urging members to
do their part to reduce the 16 per
cent which the fund last was re-
ported short and put it over the top.
The guest speaker, Mr.. Cherne,
who has won wide reputation for
his forecasts Of judicial, govern
mental and economic developments,
spoke on How Private Is Private
Enterprise?"
War" he said, ''has done many
strange things to what we have con-
sidered our way of life. The shocks
OF this war have been so great, they
have included so much that was un-
expected, that all of us have finally
been conditioned to expect the un-
expected. We have been jolted out
of the old and familiar ways of
thinking. We have had to accept
much which was distasteful or dis
agreeable. With very good reason,
we believe there is still worse to
come"
On the heels of the decade of
depression, he added I'VE see the
war completely reshaping the Amer
lean business pattern" And he
pointed out: 1--WE know the casualties
on the home front, in terms OF the
old and the familiar, will be almost
as numerous as on the fighting
fronts"
Business Puzzled.
1t Is not surprising, he declared,
that many businessmen have had
in the back of their minds the ques-
tlon OF whether private enterprise
can survive the economic earth
quake induced by total warfare"
And he explained:
mot do We want it to survivor
1t has nothing to do with what you
and I, as individuals, want. The
compulsives of total war are not
respecters of individual preferences
when they conflict with the survival
of the group. We didn't want this
war, but we got it. We didn't want
10 years of depression, but we got
that too. When war seemed inev-
liable, when we were armipg for
defense, we didn't want to give up
business as usual. There is very
little of business as usual left. And
there will be still less in another six
months"
Total economic war came, Mr.,
Cherne said, only recently, simul-
taneous with the announcement of
the African campaign. This was
the controlled materials plan. This
plan, he explained, is no new prior
1ty system, but a plan which must
inevitably operate 1Of the CartellZa-
ton OF American industry"
Civilians CurtaiIed.
He pointed out that ~ per cent
Of the total steel production might
go to civilian needs and only three
fourths of l per cent of copper pro-
duction. The rest of the controlled
materials, he emphasized, will be
divided among the principal war
contractors, and "it is the contractor
himself who will be responsible for