Word: beaverisms
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...Iong ago a civil servant who had just been transferred to the Ministry of Aircraft Production expressed the general complaint against the Ministry. "You'd hardly believe the appalling state of this office," said he. "The place is a complete chaos." Somebody asked: "Isn't the Beaver producing the planes?" "Oh, yes," said the complainant, "he's producing them all right. But, my dear fellow, the methods! They're dreadful...
...days when he ran the Express and the Standard, the Beaver meets his committee heads in conference every afternoon. He presides lolling in a big chair. Every night at 11 o'clock (the hour when British dailies go to bed with their first editions) his secretary collects from each committee a full report of work done that day. Next morning Lord Beaverbrook reads these reports, then takes action. Example: one report told of a small Midlands manufacturer who was down in his output because of a shortage of certain classes of material and labor. A neighbor ing manufacturer...
...nagging, harrying, wheedling, the Beaver got underlings to assume responsibility. One subordinate whom he bawled out (as he once bawled out Fleet Street editors) wrote a stiff request for transfer. The Beaver read the note, muttered cozily: "My frightful temper," and ordered a dozen bottles of champagne, a dozen bottles of brandy, a dozen bottles of whiskey and (in case he didn't drink) a dozen bottles of ginger beer sent to the offended secretary. With them went a note: "From a bad Minister to a fine Under Secretary." Since he became so busy, Lord Beaverbrook has stopped giving...
...underlings like the Beaver now. So does the British public, which considers him as securely settled in his job as Winston Churchill is in his. Critics call him a dictator, point out that the Government would be in a frightful mess if all the Ministries were run like Beaverbrook's. That does not worry the Beaver. They complain that he has put industrial leaders in control of supplies used in their industries. The Beaver says his men are efficient. They complain that he has stolen publicity from other Ministries with stunts such as his aluminum-collecting campaign, is tight...
Even his mildest critics say that Beaverbrook is "slightly cracked." But a Canadian columnist summed up the general opinion of him thus: "Positive, bee; comparative, beaver; superlative, Beaverbrook." To keep Britain's aircraft factories running during a Blitzkrieg is a job comparable to running General Motors' 38 U. S. plants in an earthquake...