Smyrna times., 1950-11-16
LECTURES AT
UNIVERSITY
Harold BraymaE of Dupont
Company Gives First
Address in Series
IN MITCHELL HALL

American industrial strength,
which has outstripped the world
under the consumer control" of
the free market system, will be the
keystone for whatever military
strength we develop, Harold Bray
man, director of public relations
of the DUPONT Company, said re-
Gently.
In an address which was the
first of lecture series by various
speakers on topics in economics at
the University of Delaware, he de-
clared that "only in the develop
ment of that strength can there be
any peace, or any security, for us
as individuals, and for America as
a nation"
The series, being held in Mitchell
Hall, is sponsored by the Univer-
sity's Department of Economies
and Business Administration. Mr..
Brayman spoke on "Bigness in
Business" emphasizing the role of
large corporations in the develop
ment of American peacetime liv-
ing standards and wartime fight
ipo. ,,ofa1f;oI
Pointing out that many vital
production jobs, such as steel MAX
ing, can only be handled by large
companies, Mr.. Brayman said:
'fWe are strong because we are
able to back up the indisputable
qualities of the American fighting
man with weapons he needs to
overcome the technology of our
enemies.
1--WE are strong because in this
country one steel company alone
has more productive capacity than
exists in all the territory behind
the Iron Curtain. We are strong
because our machine tool compan-
les can turn out the tools to make
equipment of war. We are strong
because our automobile companies
and our airplane companies can
turn out tanks, and guns and
planes in great profusion.
big businesses are able to do
these things only because they are
big. If we in America wish to
maintain ourselves as free coun-
try and as prosperous country,
we must have big companies to do
the big jobs that exist.
"And so, on the solution of this
controversy over bigness depends
perhaps not only our standard of
living, which is the envy of all the
world but likewise the most preci-
Gus heritage of all our freedom" !"
Mr. Brayman emphasized that a
business in free economy be-
comes big chiefly by winning the
preference of large numbers of
customers.
"And yet it is one of the anoma-
lies of our thinking today" he
said, that the same people whose
votes as customers make the big
businesses big, sometimes fall
prey to the idea that what they,
as customers, have created should
he broken up and destroyed. The
alternative to CONSUMER controL
which we have at present, is polit-
ical control" This, he said, "has
been somewhat less than an out
standing bell-ringer" where it has
been tried.
Efforts are constantly being
made, he charged, to distort the
true role of big business by loose
and unfair use of the term ''mon-
opoly" in connection with bigness.
''The tendency to confuse issues
by spectacular and misleading
phrases seems too great to be re-
sisted in some quarters" he said.
He recited list of corporations
that have been subjected to mon
opoly accusations although none
of them handles as much as Is
per cent of the business in its par
ticular field.
The DUPONT Company, he said
does about seven per cent of the