Purchasers in Pittsburgh

Assembled in Pittsburgh's Hotel William Penn for a four-day convention last week was the National Association of Purchasing Agents, a close-knit organization with more of the attributes of a professional than of a business body. As individuals, purchasing agents seldom make news. In the corporate hierarchy they are usually obscured by the dazzle of the sales department, the impressive spectacle of production, even by the methodical researchers. Only at Christmas does the purchasing agent come into his own. Then he is showered with gifts (usually returned) from the host of salesmen who want to keep or gain his favor.

Yet in convention assembled the purchasing agents were covered last week by crack by-line business writers from the country's leading dailies. For U. S. purchasing agents buy as much as $20,000,000,000 worth of goods per year, much of it months in advance, and their opinions of prices, values and trends are never lightly taken. Hard-boiled realists, the terror of high-pressure salesmen, immune to all except factual advertising, good purchasing agents spend their lives in the future. One error in purchasing judgment may mean to a corporation the difference between profit and loss.*

Not all the convention was given over to economic crystal-gazing. The purchasing agents heard Neil Carothers, Director of Lehigh University's College of Business Administration, pronounce Recovery "irresistible." ''We have a tough economic system," said Dr. Carothers. "It had to be tough or we would not have survived the last seven years of Depression and the New Deal." The New Deal was also kicked around by Editor J. H. Van Deventer of The Iron Age. Cracked he: "William Jennings Bryan held that it was impossible to make men out of monkeys through the operation of natural laws. Today, some of us are beginning to believe that the reverse process, at least is practicable, and that monkeys are now being made out of men through the operation of unnatural laws."

In their off time the purchasing agents toured Pittsburgh's steel district, roaring at a record 96% capacity. They groused freely about price-fixing laws, egged on by Q. Forrest Walker, economist to Manhattan's R. H. Macy & Co. For the next president of N. A. P. A. they picked George P. Brockway, bespectacled pur chasing agent for American Optical Co. But for most of the 1,382 purchasing agents who jampacked the William Penn for the biggest banquet in its history, the high point of the convention was the report of the business survey committee, headed by Frederick J. Heaslip of Fair banks Morse & Co. A synthesis of best purchasing agent opinion, the report was simply a detailed business forecast to be used as a guide to buying policy in the next six months.

In the considered words of Mr. Heaslip the "momentum of well-filled order books in the major industries as well as with most small concerns is bound to carry along the present high rate of manufacturing operations well toward the end of 1937. . . . There is little probability of a further wave of price advances in the immediate future. Consequently an end has come to the rush of buying both for protective and speculative purposes. . . . There should be a healthier state of industrial affairs with prices fluctuating the" within case a narrower recently." The range than has assembled pur been chasing agents heaved a sigh of relief. The scramble to buy ahead during the winter commodity boom had left some of them with uncomfortably heavy inventories.

Down through the whole list of basic raw material went the Heaslip report. In metals there seemed little reason to load up on steel, and commitments in scrap could be held to a minimum. Pig iron should be booked well ahead to assure deliveries. Prices of zinc, lead, tin, brass were expected to steady but in view of their recent antics purchases should be light.

As for textiles, the industry promised high operations throughout the balance of the year, and though extensive purchasing of cotton was not warranted, inventories should be well filled. Forward buying in jute and burlap could be undertaken on any dip in prices. Rayon could be bought, silk should be watched. Stocking of rubber was suggested. Glue, leather, chemicals, lubricants could be purchased freely. Price advances were expected this autumn in brick, glass and cement, but lumber might go lower. If it could be stored cheaply, coal should be bought for future use, though coke and fuel oil should be kept on a hand-to-mouth basis. Gasoline looked higher. Outlook for provisions and foodstuffs was excellent, though grain prices might be irregular for several weeks (see below).

*Presumably provoked by an error in judgment was a want-ad inserted last week in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat: "Former market analyst and investment counsel would like job in private family as chauffeur and butler. Will do laundry and look after children."

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