Evening star., 1951-02-06
Senate Unit Follows
Big Business Trail 10
ALLEGATION OF Material
By Blair Moody

by bloir MOODY
North American Newspaper Alliance.
A trail of alleged excessive un-
dercover "big business influence"
in top Administrator circles, run
ming from the failure to break up
Germany's massive cartels after
World War II to the current bitter
struggle over the ALLEGATION of
scarce "lifeblood' industrial ma
terials: is being investigated by
the Senate Small Business Com
mittee.
Chairman Sparkman has written
Secretary of Commerce Sawyer,
warning that he would consider a
change in the present system of
allocating rubber prejudicial to
the interests of small business. In
the complex labyrinth of emer-
gency agencies, Mr.. Sawyer is
still technically boss of the Ma
tional Production Authority.
Check Glen's Replacement.
The system Senator Sparkman
is fighting for is the same that
the chief of NPA's Rubber Divi-
sion, Earl w. Glen, was fired re-
Gently for refusing to torpedo.
Senator Sparkman and his COM
mittee investigators, under Gen.
eral Counsel Charles E. Shaver,
are now checking to see how it
happens that one of the men most
gravely criticized for our decar-
telizing failure in Germany has
been slipped into Mr.. Glen's place.
The new chief of NPA's Rubber
Division. Leland E. Spencer. vice
president of Kelly-Springfeld Tire
Co., a Goodyear subsidiary, was
chief of the Commerce and In
dustry Group in the United States
Decentralization outfit in postwar
Germany.
Although breaking up Ger
many's huge concentrations of in
dustrial power was one of our
chief postwar objectives, the whole
operation was such notorious
flop that, in late 1948, then Sec
retary of the Army Royal named
a special committee to go to Eu-
rope and find out what was 60
Ing on.
Ferguson Chairman.
The chairman of this group was
Garland S. Ferguson, then chair
man OF the Federal Trade Com
mission. Its other members were
the late Samuel S. IssekS, former
special assistant to the ATTORNEY
General. and A. T. Kearney, Chi
cago businessman. It's principal
adviser was Judge Charles Fahy.
This committee issued a volumi-
nous report which, in substance,
said our Decentralization program
was indeed dismal failure. It
gave as the principal reason that
the men in key positions controll-
ing it did not believe in it. It
indicated that certain large inter-
ests were more interested in work.
Ing with the cartelists, with
chance later to gain control of
some of the rich German pro-
ductive facilities, than in break
ing up the power complex that
had held much of Europe in it's
economic grasp and paved the
way for Hitler's war.
The Ferguson report commented
on Mr.. Spencer by name, as fol-
lows:
Leland Spencer, chief of the
Commerce and Industry Group,
who would have a voice in the
institution of Decentralization pro-
ceedings. stated, in answer to writ
ten questions. that he had many
times expressed the opinion to
his direct superiors and to the
United States chief of decarteliza-
cation that in his opinion
any Decentralization of any indus
trial company would inter-
fere with the increase of industrial
production
Angle of Interest.
The angle of this that interests
Senator Sparkman's committee is
that Mr., Spencer appears to have
been brought into the current rub
ber picture-after Mr.. Glen had
been removed under caustic fire
from three of the Big Four" rub
Der companies-Goodyear Good
rich and Firestone-by the same
group that put him in a key posi-
ton to exercise power in Ger
many.
Chief of the Decentralization
Branch of American Military Gov
ernment in Germany was Rich
ardson Bronson. Mr.. Bronson's s
assistant was Henry Hyman. One
of the Ferguson Committees COM
ments was that 1--WE have been
impressed by the fact that those
with direct responsibility for
carrying out the work of the De-
cartelization Branch have not had
the record of accomplishment
one would like to see in such po-
sitions."
Mr.. Bronson and Mr.. Hyman
are now both associate counsels
general for NPA. When William
H. Harrison, president of Inter-
national Telephone & Telegraph