Evening star., 1953-12-02
Weeks Hits Critics
OF Administration 5
Businessman Team
By Froncis P. Douglas
Sfar Staff Correspondent

NEW YORK, Dec. Com
merce Secretary Weeks hit back
at critics of the Eisenhower adj
ministration today and drew a
cauStic contrast between the
honorable businessmen" now
serving Government and the
former crooks and Commu-
nistS."
He said the conscientious
men and women" who are on
the administrations team are
there solely to put something
into good government instead of
trying to get something out of
bad government" He added that
he is proud to be on the team
with them.
Mr.. Weeks was the chief
speaker at a luncheon of the Ma
tional Association of Manufactu-
rers. That organization opened
its 58th annual Congress of
American Industry today at the
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. About
5000 industrialists are present.
Columbia Head Speaks.
An earlier speaker was DR..
Grayson Kirk, who succeeded
President Eisenhower as head of
Columbia University. He told the
NAM that businessmen are
uttering SILLY and dangerous
nonsense" when they claim the
universities are filled with
"crack-pots, Communists and
traitors"
Secretary Weeks said that a
barrage of criticism is being
thrown now at business in Gov
ernment in addition to attacks
leveled at private business. He
continued:
Certain critics who never OBJ
jected to associating with crooks
and Communists are objecting to
honorable businessmen serving
their country. Others, from a
Self-lntereSt which seeks personal
advantage from tanning the dy-
ing embers of a class struggle,
also are joining the anvil chorus. |
Still others, who hope to slip
back into national power and
influence, are trying to kid the |
public again with cracks about
business moving in on the Gov
ernment and kicking out all the
rest. This last I call unadulter-
ated hokum."
He described the "public
spirited businessmen" in Gov
ernment as relatively a handful
IN number. Working with those
from other walks of life, he said.
they are building "a sound, |
humanitarian, forward looking
Government for all the people"
This, he said, is without the
squandermania Of Spendthrifts,
the shame of corruption or the
taint of. subversion."
MSA Team HOnOred.
Another event of the luncheon
was the honoring Of IA NAM
members who went aboard as
team leaders to evaluate the
mutual security program in vari-
GUS countries for the new ad-
miniStration. Each received a
medal and a citation as a NAM
man of the year.
One of the awards was a post
humous one to honor Morris
Sayre, who died in Turkey while
carrying out the mutual security
program assignment. He was
formerly president of the Corn
Products Refining Co., and
served the NAM as president
and board chairman.
In his address this morning
DR.. Kirk said university facul-
ties are composed overwhelm-
ingly of men and women loyal to
their country and to the ira
ditions of scholarship. Those
with record of disloyalty, he
asserted, should be removed as
violators of the deepest ira
ditionS of scholarship"
He laid the attacks on univer-
sites to "some businessmen and
some of their organizations" He
did not mention similar attacks
by members of congressional in
vestigating committees, presum-
ably because his speech was not !
directed to them. /
Universities alone, he said.
must decide who shall teach
their students. A university, he
said, "will lose its soul if it bends
to any popular clamor and re-
moves an honest scholar just
because his views happen to be