The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1950-09-21
500 Million Propaganda BY Big
Business Wasted, Fortune Declares

this year on its "free enterprise
propaganda campaign, and "it's not
worth a damn" Who says so? Why
the magazine Fortune, the SIZE
copy monthly Of big business.
"Some of the most highly tout.
ed education projects have Sc
provoked the unions into counter.
measures, reports Fortune mag
azine, "that the net effect ha:
often been to make Joe Doake:
more suspicious than he may have
been before"
Fortune says the business mar
is putting out all this expensive
propaganda because he is sincere
ly worried over what has been hap
pening at the polls. What he i!
after, to put it bluntly, is Re
publican victory :. But he shirk;
from debating it as SUCH"
Fortune revealed what some bus
mess men think of the Nationa
Association Of Manufacturers, anC
its propaganda. "They are so dis.
credited in the public eye that they
hurt anything they sponsor, sale
the vice president of a manufactur-
ing firm. ONIONS accomplish more
with no goddam Advertising, SAID
the vice president of a farm mach.
inery company. 'If what they say
is what business men think, ther
Pm ashamed Of business men"
said the president of an engineer
ing company. Before they try to
sell the public they'd better be
right themselves first, said the
vice president of a steel company.
US business is not selling itself
says Fortune, and business men
are asking, ais anybody really list
ening?" Fortune says no one is
listening, that the campaigns "edu-
cation" have failed, that the pub
lie has been "insulted" with nox-
ious interpretations of the Ameri-
can Dream. And never before have
we so debauched and exploited the
symbols that bind u.s." Fortune
asks "how are democracy and free
enterprise like toothpaste and
frozen food? Or rather, are they ?
Can you merchandise concept as
you do a concrete article?"
The business mans trouble, says
Fortune, has been his effort to
persuade himself that what he is
saying has nothing to do with why
he is saying it. Fortune points out
that "many of the things for which
US business is now pumping its
own hand were achieved over the
strong opposition of good part of
US business. d. That we have
achieved. more telephones, more
bathtubs and so on per capita is a
fine fact, but it is not fact that
answers the aspirations and gripes
of the people business is seeking
to win as friends"
Fortune denies the Big Business
hysteria that the American people
have so lost faith in their system
that it has to be resold. Says For
tune, after interviewing a sample
of top US management: "The aver
age executive didn't seem to be-
lieve the people are creeping to
ruin. The same survey showed
that 43 of the sc questioned (in-
prominent members of the
were almost violently anti
NAM. They too were worried over
misunderstanding, but said
the solution will be determined, not
by what business says, but by
what management does.
And Fortune adds: 1.-The public
has learned, for example, that
many prominent corporations and
business leaders have contributed
funds to the work of Merwin K.
Hart, Joseph P. Kamp and DR.. Ed
ward A. Rumely-men that a great
many Americans believe to be
fundamentally against the very
democratic system business talks
about. So long as the unions
can make capital out Of such alli-
they are making very
of management's words
to employees, however, sincere, will
suffer guilt by association.
Hart runs the National Econ
omic Council; Kamp, the Constitu-
.ional Educational League; Rune
y, the Committee for Constitu-
-ional Government. Kamp andl
have been cited for con-
Tempt of Congress. Kamp is now
Jail term. They refused
20 reveal the names of their back
ers. Hart had been branded a Fac
st on the floor of Congress. All
.hree peddle the same line-hate
abor, hate the farmer, hate the
New Deal and the Fair Deal.)