BUSINESSMEN IN POLITICS

There Is More Talk Than Action

IN Chicago last week it looked as if business-baiting would play a heavier role in the 1956 election campaign than in any presidential race since the 19305. But U.S. businessmen as a group gave little evidence of apprehension or even of quickened interest in politics. In Boston and Seattle, Republican committeemen reported that substantially fewer businessmen had volunteered for electioneering duty than in 1952. The same was true in Pittsburgh, where one industrialist explained: "Everyone figures Ike is a shoo-in. The same old warhorses are still the active ones in both parties."

While the 1956 attitude is no doubt a factor, the paucity of businessmen active in political affairs runs much deeper than one season's mood. U.S. businessmen, whether Democrats or Republicans, have a deep-seated aversion to political activity. Even in the last presidential campaign an upsurge in political interest on the part of businessmen generally took the form of discreet, behind-the-scenes aid. Few businessmen shrink from political action in cases that directly affect their industry, e.g., for higher tariffs on imported textiles (promised by implication last week in the Democratic platform). But most executives shrink from open support of political parties for fear of offending customers, stockholders or powerful public officials. Shrugs a Republican auto-industry executive: "We sell cars to both Democrats and Republicans -and there are more Democrats than Republicans in this country."

Labor unions, on the other hand, aggressively campaign for their candidates, will raise a $3,000,000 war chest (up nearly 50% since 1952) for the Democratic Party this year. While politically-oriented union periodicals and fund-raisers circulate freely in most plants, employers as a group feel workers would resent any effort to expound management's view of political issues.

Some businessmen realize that their failure to be counted at campaign time tends to hinder business' role of leadership in U.S. society. They recognize the fact that, despite the enormous impact of business on the welfare of 168 million Americans, its legitimate interests have never in modern times been treated with the sympathy that politicians reserve for farmers or organized labor. Even many politicians favorably inclined toward the businessman's interests are reluctant to speak out.

To improve the standing and increase the participation of businessmen in politics, General Electric recently sent 400,000 management men and stockholders a pamphlet entitled "Political Helplessness of Business Hurts Everybody." G.E.'s main argument: "The big reason that union officials are thought to be so important politically while businessmen are usually so impotent is that rightly or wrongly the politicians figure union officials can and do influence votes, while businessmen can't and don't. The businessman who says he's not involved in politics is kidding himself -dangerously." Adds William Harrison Fetridge, vice president of Popular Mechanics and longtime Republican fund-raiser in Chicago: "No others have a greater stake in America's future than our business people. Yet it is my belief that with their 'big-talk-little-do' platform they have abdicated their right to provide leadership in public life."

How can businessmen achieve first-class political citizenship? In some states, e.g., Ohio, California, they have formed political organizations on a continuing basis. Individual companies also are gingerly tackling the problem with campaigns to register employees, bipartisan presentation of issues and candidates in forums and house organs. Westinghouse, for example, devotes equal space in its company newspaper to candidates of both parties, prints each party's statements verbatim. Johnson & Johnson, No. 1 U.S. maker of bandages and surgical dressings, has started a nonpartisan political-education program that has prompted 80 employees to hold political office in states where the company has plants. Ford Motor Co. last June sent out letters urging more than 12,000 management-level employees to take an "active, perceptive interest in candidates" and to devote "at least a portion of their available time to the party of their choice."

Many business leaders are becoming increasingly aware that management cannot play an effective role in politics merely by contributing cash in election years or leaping into the fray when threatened with hostile legislation. If business is to live up to its social responsibilities, they argue, businessmen will have to devote to politics the inventiveness and drive that they lavish full-time on their jobs. Says U.S. Chamber of Commerce President John S. Coleman: "We must have a point of view -a philosophy that will permit us, instead of resisting change, to play a creative role in controlling and directing it."

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