Evening star., 1949-09-18
Must Get America to
Keep Up Marshall
Plan Until 81
By Martin S. Hayden

/
salesmanship.
Paul G. Hoffman. chief of the
Economic Cooperation Admins
tration. is trying to keep Ameri-
cans sold on the idea that. having
started 1t 18 months ago, they
must stick doggedly, until 1852,
to the expensive Marshall Plan
of dollars for American friends
willing to work to help themselves.
At the same time, the man with
the ready smile and the discon-
certing. icy-blue eyes is trying to
impress Europeans that, come
1852. the worlds greatest peace
time aid program will end, and
only the Lord may be left to help
those who cannot help themselves.
If Mr.. Hoffman succeeds. it will
mark the climax chapter to three
stories.
One will be the tale. of a young
ster who went into the business
that couldn't succeed" made
million dollars before he was "a,
and then led the move to save
free enterprise" with a planned
outpouring of governmental dol
lars.
Another will be the political
saga of how a Democratic Presi-
dent had" to take a Republican
administrator and of the strange
way that appointment worked out.
First Auto Venture Failed
The third will be the story of
the man with no visible nervous
system who laughed of all the
attacks of his hostile critics and
went on to get in trouble because
OF his own quick success.
The first story, written to the
Horatio Alger pattern. began 80
years ago when a California avo-
cado grower and engine tinkerer
decided there was insufficient
family cash to keep his 18-year-
old son in the University of Chi
cago. Young Paul Hoffman de-
cided the infant auto industry was
the place for beginner with am
! bition. His father went to the
local banker.
THAT" says the man who now
specializes in boxcar figures. was
my first lesson in how wrong
figures can be-"
The banker posed and proved
the problem. He noted that, out
side rural areas, Americans owned
something approaching 100000
horses and carriages. Farmers,
he said, did not count in this
tcalculation, because obviously
farmers make too little to buy an
automobile" Similarly, half of
those owning carriages could not
afford the new-fangled and
"horseless" model.
Therefore, came the verdict
there could never be more than
loo, 900 American automobiles and
that made it a "will-o'- the wisp"
industry which only a fool would
enter.
Mr.. Hoffman went in anyway.
His first employer. Chicago's Hal
laday Motor Co. ("every day O.
Halliday for me~ proved the
banker right by going broke and
their exporter and "demonstrator"
went on to become a Los Angeles
salesman for Studebaker. the COM
pany he stayed with until a re-
luctant President drafted him
four decades later.
BY the time he left for the
Army in 1917. Mr.. Hoffman was
Studebaker's California regional
manager. When he came back in
1919 he rejected q $4,000 offer
from Studebaker President A. r.
Erskine to become the New York
sales manager and, instead,
opened his own Los Angeles deal
ership. which he still owns.
In 1925, already a millionaire,
Mr.. Hoffman reversed his earlier
decision never to work for Any
one else again" and became
Erskine's vice president in charge
Of sales. Ten years later, with
Erskine dead, Mr.. Hoffman be-
came president of Studebaker. He
took his company out of bank
ruptcy and made 1t the biggest
of the Nations postwar "inde-
pendents."
Impressed Vandenberg
The foundation of the bridge
which took Mr.. Hoffman out of
big business and into big states
manship and. as he puts it, my
present troubles" was laid when
he accepted the craftsmanship of
the Committee for Economic De-
velopment. From one end Of the
Nation to the other, businessmen
and chambers of commerce heard
q free-enterprdSe evangelist preach
the necessity that they prepare for
the economics Of a new and post
war America.
Michigan's Senator Vanden-
berg met the Hoffman converts as
he listened, in late 1947 and early
1948, to spokesmen for nearly 500
organizations who came to Wash
ington to speak their piece about
the evolving plan to bail out sick
Ellrone'S econonv with American
aid.
II asked each one," Senator
Vandenberg recalled last week.
whom he favored for the job of
ECA administrator. Many names
were suggested. but the common
denominator. the one heard the
most, was Paul Hoffman. I had
only met him once, but I was con-
vinced and know today I was
right" @
IJltimat ta1v Senator Vandenherc