Knudsen Objects

Classic example of a historic U. S. figure--the self-made man--is hulking, ruddy Signius Wilhelm Poul Knudsen, whose big competent mechanic's hands work the president's controls of one of the half-dozen biggest U. S. corporations: General Motors Corp. Danish-born Bill Knudsen believes (with personal justification) that success's best recipe is competence and hard work, its most powerful attraction the prospect of good pay.

Last week, before the American News paper Publishers Association at Manhattan's swank Waldorf-Astoria, Bill Knudsen blew off a cloud of steam over the strained relations of big business and Government in the U. S., let go the biggest puff on the subject of big pay for industrialists. Excerpt:

"It has suddenly become a mortal sin to get a high salary in industry. I ... object to being put in the public stocks and used for campaign material. For instance, a couple of years ago two members of the Cabinet* got on the radio and held Mr. Sloan [G. M.'s board chairman] and myself up as having received over $350,000 a year in salary and bonus--but they did not say that Government and charity had gotten 90% of this amount.

". . . As a good cash customer of the Government I object to being treated that way, and I was probably paying for part of that radio talk on top of it. ... This idea of having everybody get poor so nobody can get rich is not going to work in the long run."

* The members, Ickes and Jackson.

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