The CIO news. (Cumberland, Md.) 1942-????, 1943-12-20
Looking Ahead
By Len De Caux

Athletes Foot are on the warpath again. What
are they selling this time? F. E., friends-Free
Enterprise.
The National Association of Manufacturers has
announced gigantic colossal ballyhoo campaign
through press, radio, church, movies, theaters,
schools and factory talks to sweep Free Enterprise
into public favor"
Millions upon millions of dollars to be spent
to sell F. E. economic salvation" the only
thing that can restore prosperity to postwar
America"
Who's going to put up all this dough for full-page
ads, and for the fat salaries and fatter expense
accounts of public relations gents who will seek
to enlist the personal interest" of newspaper pub
fishers and editors radio commentators movie pro-
ducers, writer's and lecturers?
Fellow-suckers we are. That's where we start
to pay. The more the bg-business corporations
spend for advertising and public relations" the
less they pay in taxes, and the more the American
people will have to pay.
X 4
The NAM has it all doped out in one of its
recent convention announcements.
Let forget" it says, "that legislators
too mortal beings afflicted with all the short
comings of human nature"
And here thought Congressman were
supermen, completely immune to the temptations
of worldly wealth and power offered by the MANI
But no. the NAM believes that if it can put on
a big enough propaganda campaign it can make its
economic philosophy" popular "that adherence
to it will prove political advantage to the majority
of congressman"
AS for you and me, fellow-suckers, the NAM
believes we're even more of a pushover People
in the mass" it says tend to think in blurs. They
read while they rum. They are moved primarily
by simple, emotional ideas" Which sounds bit
like quote from "Mein Kampf'-but let it pass.
So we simple, emotional folks with our blurry
thinking (the NAM never once is so crude as to
use the word "sucker') are to have F. E. shouted
at the radio, stuck before our eyes every
time we look at billboard newspaper, and so
impressed on our weak minds at every turn, that
we'll be crying for F. E. for breakfast dinner and
supper and voting only for Congressman who
promise us F. E. "a hours a day.
We won't even ask what kind of merchandise the
NAM has packaged up for us under the label of
Free Enterprise according to the NAM. People
in the mass it says, "are unconcerned about
details
But, at the risk Of making liars Of the NAM,
let's try to focus blurred thinking on the big
business program behind the F. E. label.
You may have thought you were engaging in a
little free entererprise when you joined union.
But what's F. E. for us is not F. E. for the NAM.
1t bitterly opposed the Wagner Act, for instance as
governmental interference with Free Enterprise.
The NAM definitely does not like high taxes on
high incomes and high profits. They interfere with
Free Enterprise. But who's going to pay for the
relief of proteers from such taxes? Fellow suckers
that's where we come in again. Big business has
objection to a sales tax, for instance
Social security and other social legislation leaves
the NAM cold, as do public works to provide en-
ployment. They're tax on Free Enterprise, en-
courage bureaucracy" and interfere with an en-
ployer's freedom to say to worker: Take Job
on my terms go starve."
X 4 4
AS for labor unions, recent full-page ad of the
McGraw-Hl Co.. describing what big business
means by Free Enterprise. lets the cat out of the
bag.
What's the big menace to Free Enterprise these
days, according to this ad? It's not Hitler. It's
the hllcinnSS mon md