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Show L Ait, A V&i&,-w&rwv''r''Pg' rjtrtr I -,WPWBi' fWsesto. .gaiter. -safei Kaiser Backs Drive for r Large Turnout at Polls Election of Enterpr'rsing Officials Assures ffly Program for Full Productivity, Famed jL ffi Shipbuilder Tells Countrymen. i By BAUKHAGE Picwt Analyst and Commentator. WNU 8ervloe, Union Trust Building, Washington, D. C. Commentators and newspaper writers get a lot of free meals. Or at least they are ofTered a lot from people and organizations who want something. So when I was invited in-vited to attend a luncheon given by the Nonpartisan Association for Franchise Education, Inc., I wondered. won-dered. When I learned that Henry J. Kaiser, shipbuilder and entrepreneur entre-preneur would be there, I was more interested. I arrived late, as I must at all luncheons, since I don't get ofT the air until 1:15. I slipped quietly into the one vacant chair, for a stocky, bald-headed man in glasses was making some highly emphatic remarks re-marks accompanied by gestures which go with what you visualize as the big - business - get - things -done executive. He was talking about the necessity of "full employment" after the war. By the time the luncheon was over I was another one of the people who once having seen this human dynamo of mass production in action are almost afraid to talk about him. It requires just too many superlatives. Henry Kaiser has lent his name to this franchise organization which I mentioned because he believes that the only hope for democracy Is a job for everybody, and he believes that there is plenty of chances of a Job for everybody if the everybody realizes the fact and then gets out and expresses his sentiments with ballots. (Getting out the vote is the purpose pur-pose of the Nonpartisan Association Associ-ation for Franchise Education, Inc., a non-profit, non-political corporation corpora-tion with headquarters at 16 East 62nd street, New York City J Because President Roosevelt when he was making his campaign speech to the Teamsters last month mentioned men-tioned that Henry Kaiser was present, pres-ent, I thought Kaiser was coming out for the Democratic ticket. But he is not. He was invited by the teamsters to the dinner (with whom he has far more contacts than with the New Deal). He has no parti-Ban parti-Ban purpose in backing Franchise Education, Inc. Many persons of both parties are behind it simply because they believe in getting out the vote. And any thinking person realizes the need for such an organization when he considers the facts. You can't have democracy if people don't exercise the franchise and that is exactly what a lot of the people of the United States do NOT do. The smaller the vote, the nearer dictatorship. dicta-torship. Expect Less Than Half to Cast Vote The Gallup poll indicates that there will be a drop of 10 million In the vote in the national election this year. That would mean only 40 million ballots cast out of a possible 88 million. In the Wisconsin primaries where Willkie staked his presidential chances, only 33 per cent of the people bothered to go to the polls. In New Jersey, with the exception of one county (Mayor Hague's bailiwick) baili-wick) only 15 per cent of the registered regis-tered voters went to the polls in the recent primaries. In New York state, the votes dropped from 6,279,000 In 1940 to 3,308.000 in 1943. This year there are 44,043,669 American men of voting age. Nearly nine million of these are now in the armed forces and it will be hard to do anything at this late date to stimulate them. Therefore, the greater responsibility devolves upon the members of service families at home who can exercise their franchise. fran-chise. Five million families have moved, following war industries. Some of these have lost their votes but others can establish new residence or register regis-ter and vote by mail in their home towns. There are millions of first voters coming up; this year 600.000 more women than men are eligible to vote and women are laggard about carrying car-rying out this function. This year there are great issues at stake and America's is one of the few free elections going on in the world. So much for the bed rock facts about voting. Now what about this job business j that voters have so much to do with? Mr. Kaiser's views on this subject will startle a lot of people. But they will not startle many of the members of the fraternity of big businessmen who, like Mr. Kaiser, know that their bread is buttered but-tered with the same spread that covers the slice in the working man's dinner pail. Mr. Kaiser believes in three principles: prin-ciples: 1. High wages. (This is a hot one for the old-fashioned tycoon to swallow!) swal-low!) 2. Increased production. (That isn't so terrifying.) 3. Low prices. (Another bombshell.) bomb-shell.) These are necessary, he believes, to full employment which is in turn vital not only to prosperity but the only escape from depression, dissension dis-sension and war. And what, I asked Mr. Kaiser, are the things which we have to have to achieve full employment? Kaiser Mentions Production Needs Two essentials which he named Immediately were: first, competition (that is, removal of monopoly). Second, Sec-ond, "credit." ("And," his son, who is one of Kaiser's expert associates, piped up from the end of the table, "guts.") Mr. Kaiser told a number of off-the-record stories of how monopolies monopo-lies had fought him, tried to keep him out of one business after another an-other merely because they had monopolies and didn't want to face competition with a man who had learned how to make money by paying pay-ing high wages, producing efficiently efficient-ly and selling at low costs. As to credit, the stories be tolri would curl your hair. But Kaisei didn't blame the banks or ' the hi vestment trusts for refusing to lend capital to pioneers. B' '. ie did offer a way out. He sugar.-,,.; d an intr mediate credit institution. An ei ganization which wnuld lend mnne on new ventures, giving them. sa a three-year chance: if these ven tures 'showed a good record then they would be normal investment for banks. If private capital wouldn't go into intermediate financing, let the government do it under the same system as the Federal reserve system, sys-tem, says Mr. Kaiser. But in the end the whole program comes back to jobs. A survey of his own workers showed that over 9(1 per cent of them had saved money for investment and also showed that the thing they wanted to invest in first was what? An automobile'' That's what he expected. But, no. the answer was a home. But there was a condition: some assurance of security of a job. I suppose Kaiser has built nearl two-score successful businesses (he said his shipyards had built half the liberty ships in one-half the man-hours man-hours they had been built before) and yet real distress came over his face when he began to talk about the tremendous possibilities for industry in-dustry in other lines as yet untouched. un-touched. "Think of it," he said, pounding the table, "58 per cent of the freight cars in this country are 25 years old. We could ship them all to China and build new ones. China would be glad to pay us in raw materials we need." Some one asked him about surplus sur-plus property disposal and that led him back to ships. "Turn those we don't need I'll buy some over to the countries that have lost all their shipping in the war, at a nominal rental lend-lease lend-lease if you will with the agreement agree-ment that these countries will buy the type of ship from us they need when they can, and pay us in raw materials." "The trouble with us," he said, "is that we measure values in dollars. dol-lars. It isn't dollars at all that matters, mat-ters, it's labor." (Back to jobs again.) Finally, he had to nurry away ta an appointment. He shook our hands and begged each of us to help gel out the vote this year. "We can make this country roll," he said, and then added with a smile "of course we'll have to wake up some of the Rip van Winkles." |
