Stimulator

No man in the New Deal hierarchy was more suspect by businessmen than Henry Agard Wallace. So when he moved in as Secretary of Commerce, he smartly laid low, concentrated on rejuvenating his department. Under the Roosevelt administration, the department, which had been ably organized by Herbert Hoover, had gone to pot. When Henry Wallace did speak up, he tried to pass as the new friend of businessmen (whom he had once implied were fascists). His technique: an imitation of Free Enterpriser Eric Johnson.

Last week, Wallace gave more tangible proof that business might finally get some help from the Commerce Department. To the top job of Director of Domestic Commerce Wallace named dark, good-looking Albert Jesse Browning, 46, who has glittered brilliantly in numerous top Washington jobs.

The Peanut Vendor. No New Dealer, Al Browning has sometimes voted Republican, is a businessman's businessman. He was pleasantly inducted into the virtues of free enterprise as a teen-aged boy in his home town of Blackfoot, Idaho. He got a job selling peanuts at village and county fairs, made only $1 a day on salary. When he persuaded his employer to put him on a commission (penny a bag) he hustled fast enough to make $3.50 a day, decided he was going to become a salesman.

After attending Purdue, Harvard and M.I.T. he did become one, selling everything from electrical appliances to paint, in jobs all over the country. By 1938, he was making $18,000 a year as merchandising manager of Montgomery Ward & Co. From there he moved to Chicago's United Wallpaper, Inc. as president at $27,000 a year. When war came he went to Washington, made a name as a red-tape slasher, ended up as a brigadier general, Assistant Director of Materiel. He spark-plugged renegotiation, set up the highly efficient contract termination system.

Adequate Incentive. Now, Al Browning hopes to perform another minor miracle in Wallace's bailiwick; he expects to make it the two-fisted champion of business in the Administration. He has promised to stay only three months, will probably stay longer if Wallace lives up to his promise to give him a free hand. What he hopes to drive home is that business must have "adequate incentive" to supply the jobs for full employment, i.e., taxes should be further reduced, plant amortization regulations liberalized, etc. He summed up his new job: "Our purpose is to stimulate, not just the operation of business, but the profitable operation of business."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.