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Show Marquis Chllds Hoffman Finds 'Directors1 Change Rules WASHINGTON "W hat we need Is more business men In government" "Only a man who has met a pay roll can run a big undertaking." "Let's use the brains that industry uses to achieve big things." - How many times In recent .years have we heard that kind of talk? It is Invariably the cry when government is faced with a big task. . So what happens ? The European Euro-pean recovery program Is one of the biggest jobs ever contemplated contem-plated spending billions of dollars dol-lars in order to bring about the ' rehabilitation of western Europe. President Truman names as boss of this job Paul C. Hoffman, one of .the ablest men in American industry. If you were to point out to a foreigner the best type of Americas Amer-icas industrialist, you would probably pick Hoffman. He is the kind of dynamic individual who gets things accomplished. -There is nothing solemn or pompous about him. There is a humorous glint in his eye as he sails in to do what has to be done. The man who built the Studebaker corporation into a thriving business- has many of the qualities that Sinclair Lewis gave to the hero of his novel "Dodsworth Finds Rules Different So Paul Hoffman comes to Washington. And he promptly finds that the rules under which he must try to work are utterly and completely different from anything that any industrialist ever faced. Hoffman la much too sensible to complain. Or if he does mutter, mut-ter, he keeps his complains for his wife and his closest friends. But the point Involved here Is so important that It seems to me Hoffman's position should be explored objectively. A man playins; under a set of rules that give him broad authority to exercise ex-ercise his Judgment and talents, suddenly finds himself In a new kind of game with a dozen jealous jeal-ous guardians breathing down his neck. . As the head of a big corporation, corpora-tion, Hoffman has been responsible respon-sible to his board of directors. The test of his ability, and therefore there-fore the test of whether or not he kept his Job, wss his capacity to produce grood motor cars that could be sold at a profit Achieving Achiev-ing that he also achieved a considerable con-siderable measure of independence. independ-ence. Crechety Member His board of directors in the new Job is congress. When the president appointed him and the senate approved, he accepted in the belief that the board of directors di-rectors had made up its mind on the task in hand. Hoffman very quickly discovered, discov-ered, however, that this wss not so. He spent a lot of time debating de-bating the terms of the Job with a crotchety member of the board of directors named John Taber. Appearing before the Taber faction of the board, Hoffman has hsd to state in advance what he intended to do with every bit of the money that was about to be turned over to the boss. (Or is It?) Thus he had to make commitments, or go through the fiction of making commtiments, well in advance of an undertaking undertak-ing that Is shot full of Intangibles Intangi-bles and unknowablea. It is Just as though the board of directors of Studebaker had said to Hoffman, "Wrwant you to tell us what your production schedule is for the next 18 months. You must say how many sedans and how many coupes you will make and how many will be yellow, green, blue and pink. , You must tell us how much you will charge for each car and what the profit will be." Much Simpler Job Obviously, no motor car president presi-dent would think of giving final answers to such questions. Compared Com-pared to the European recovery job, the motor ear business Is as simple as making mudples in the back yard. Now, after he has been on the Job for two months, one faction of the board of directors tells , the boss that the whole project is to be slashed by 25. This decree comes down from on high despite the fact-that Hoffman and everyone else familiar with the undertaking have said repeatedly re-peatedly that to cut it even a little belOw the 15,300,000,000 level would make recovery and rehabilitation Impossible. The moral of aU this Is obvious. obvi-ous. It is of no avail to bring in an industrialist even the ablest industrialist if he is to be hamstrung ham-strung by confusion, uncertainty, uncer-tainty, doubt snarls of red tape and the harassment of jealousy and suspicion. There is another faction in the unwieldy board of directors that sits over Hoffman. The spokesman spokes-man for this faction in the senate sen-ate Is Senator Arthur H. Van-den Van-den be rf. This faction must restore re-store the cut In E R P funds and they must see to It that Hoffman Hoff-man gets at least a little of the . independence that goes with running run-ning a successful industry. r - Copyright 1848. by United ; Feature Syndicate |
