Show STATE STATE OF THE NATION anyone who conducts a business successfully in the face of the growing mountain of government controls must have a crops of lawyers at his elbow an individual with a good idea and the willingness to risk his savings to back his idea is not enough he cannot go ahead except by the grace of countless bureaus and agencies staffed with hopelessly confused little bureaucrats every move he makes must be paved with priorities allocations certificates and directives if he does manage to run the gauntlet and come out with an article the public needs and wants he cannot sell it unless the price is approved by a government agent acting under the authority of an unintelligible formula in the meantime the government continues to print tons of hopeful advice to aspiring small business such is the state of the nation paradoxically larger industries able to hire lawyers and burvice the present crazy system if anyone can are the most vociferous in their condemnation dem nation of the situation they realize that they were once small and they want to preserve the kind of a country which keeps alive the hope of the beginner they realize too that if a crop of healthy small business is not developing continually big business business and big government will gradually destroy and freedom for the individual As the president of one leading oil company asserts business and industry to succeed must serve the public this is best done through competition to have competition we must preserve at all costs an environment in which the little man can continue to challenge the big fellow for public favor faith in competitive enterprise has guided my life within my lifetime the company founded by my father grew from a very small enterprise to one of substantial size we cannot restore individual opportunity in this country unless we reject government by decree which is the kind of government we have now as far as business is concerned and which is the kind we will have tomorrow for all of us if a resurgence of confidence in independent action does not appear soon |