Word: businessman
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Columnist Walter Lippmann forsook foreign affairs and domestic politics for a moment last week to deliver a pep talk to the U.S. businessman. And he said a mouthful...
...American businessman, wrote Mr. Lippmann, holds his - and the world's -fate in his hands because, of all the world's great powers, the U.S. alone has "no governing class which has a social position and political power superior to that of the business community." For that reason preoccupation with the current economies of other nations will be far less instructive to him than the study of a significant thought from the past : the psychoanalysis of the divergent fortunes of British and French aristocracies made some 80 years ago by "the incomparable de Tocqueville...
...biggest war jobs was one proof. Being permitted to talk his way out of it and into new, enlarged powers as Petroleum Coordinator was an even greater one. Then came the final tribute from Chairman William R. Boyd Jr. of the Petroleum Industry War Council (a real, live businessman): "[This] is deeply gratifying to me personally and I am sure that it will be to every oil man in the country." Mr. Ickes' new powers over oil may have little practical value, since he was exercising them anyway, but they give him the blessing of the law. He still...
After the cards on the table have been examined, the board starts with a proposal to slash profits 25%, 50%, or maybe more. The manufacturer counter-proposes. If all the high cards belong to one side, the game is over fast. Usually the businessman asks for a hearing before the top Washington board. Since Washington is the last chance, most contractors go armed with an arsenal of facts, ready for a last-ditch fight. They usually get it. One small steel company spent two twelve-hour days arguing with the top board, got only an invitation for a return visit...
Both see subcontracting as something more than a war need-as perhaps the hope of the little businessman in the future. Not long ago the president of a big manufacturing firm, who has sweated blood to get his operation wholly integrated under one roof, took a look at Lights, Inc. Said he: "Mr. Thorndike, you're just four years ahead...