OCR Text |
Show BUSINESS SELLS ITSELF A YEAR and more ago business big business started an effort ef-fort to sell the American people on American business institutions. That was a move in the right direction, di-rection, but to do a really effective job the copy used in an advertising campaign must consist of some- 1 ili.ia .r- f. j thing more than generalities and platitudes. To make such a campaign really effective business big business bus-iness must lay the cards on the table, face up, where both labor and all consumers may see the hand that management and capital is holding. With rare exceptions all business big business is honest, but it must so prove its honesty that Henry Wallace and those of his kind cannot produce phony figures out of a hat and have the American people, both workers and consumers, consum-ers, willing to accept such phony figures. The workers and consumers consum-ers must have direct, definite and positive evidence that will dispute and discredit such figures regardless regard-less of who produces them. Business big business must, If it is to sell the American people, peo-ple, take the public into its confidence con-fidence by a presentation of the definite costs in the production of its commodity. The costs of material, ma-terial, labor, taxes and all the other items that go to make up the total. There can be no holes left for covering np even such Infinitesimal costs as bonuses paid to management for a job well done. There should be nothing noth-ing left for the public to guess at and magnify. Business big business must balance bal-ance sales against production costs, and show to whom, and for what, those sales dollars were paid. Business big business may not f always feel it desirable to take the public into its confidence with such intimate details of its operations. To do so is more tolerable than to leave the public, including workers and all consumers, in the dark and a prey to the false and misleading statements made by those who seek personal gain from having the people peo-ple misled. A few big business concerns which have taken the people into their confidence have presented in a factual and easily . understood way the details of their operations. Such concerns are the exceptions. They do not prove the rule. For "t many, published statements consist of generalities and platitudes. To the public, including labor, such statements but add fuel to the fire of suspicion. They are but evidence evi-dence of something to cover up; evidence that Henry Wallace might have been right; that out of the supposed sup-posed exorbitant profits the workers could have been paid the excessive wage increases they demanded, without an increase in price to the consumer. Business big business can have the confidence, the sentiment and the influence of the people of the nation, including a majority of the workers, when the people are given all of the vital facts of production costs and the distribution of the sales dollar. The support of the people cannot be purchased with v generalities and platitudes or half facts. With such public confidence as a backing, big business can refuse re-fuse the ever increasing demands for more wages than the price of the commodity can carry. Political Conventions Any notional political convention is, in at least one way, much like a session of congress. There are ninny individuals occupying official offi-cial delegate seats who are simply "among those present." They do as they are directed and exert no real influence. Their vote counts one, but it is cast more by those of the delegation who are doing the . directing than by the unimportant individual delegate. The party leaders who sit In the delegations from each state constitute con-stitute the directing force of each convention. It is exceptional for a convention of either party to get beyond that party leadership control. con-trol. Much the same thing Is true of a session of congress. A comparatively com-paratively small minority of each party controls party action. A majority of each party represents but window dressing. Most of us appreciate recognition from our fellows and the bit of limelight such recognition brings. We shoulder the burdens that go with offices in the lodges, the service serv-ice clubs, church societies and other non-pnying community Jobs because of the accord such jobs can bring to us. We may, and frequently do, tire of the job when the luster dims, but there are always others to take on and replace those who tire. Such is the way of life in our rural communities. |