After the Third Highball

"Too many men in American industry think of free enterprise as a hunting license, as something they use to get what they want for themselves. [They don't] measure up to the responsibility side of free enterprise, which requires standing on your own feet." Thus last week Inland Steel Chairman Clarence Randall, who is also an adviser on foreign economic policy to the Administration, lashed out at "those who sabotage" free enterprise.

There are too many businessmen, said Randall before the 81st annual meeting of the American Bankers Association, who "boast of free enterprise" while they "sabotage the competitive system." The "man who makes the discreet telephone call to a competitor before he puts in the new price is asking for the nationalization, the socialization that he so abhors."

Another saboteur is the man who seeks a "Government subsidy," a way "of getting money out of the Government and into his business and not getting caught at it. One is the 'Buy America' policy [favoring American bidders over foreign competitors], which funnels profits into the hands of certain corporations and certain labor groups. Surely the great corporations can struggle along without a 10% edge over their foreign competitors."

Randall condemned "American business [which] cannot operate without a high protective tariff. You cannot benefit one segment of the American people by a high protective tariff unless some other segment pays for it. You can restrict the flow of Venezuelan oil to the United States. When you do that, you make all of New England take a higher power cost because its fuel will cost more. The ultimate payoff is with the consumer."

Having taken care of anyone who favors a protective tariff, Randall then clobbered businessmen for "evading responsibilities." Companies in metropolitan centers tend to "shrug off" their obligation to support the "schools, the churches, the hospitals, all of the community services, [which are] all a part of the price of doing business." As for higher education, said Randall, "only recently has industry begun to sense that there is an obligation on it to maintain by direct grants the universities [from which] comes the new leadership."

As for the Government, "after about the third highball, listen to the businessman tell what rascals--congenital nitwits--they are in Washington. Tap that man on the shoulder" to come down to Washington, and "immediately you find you are in the presence of the indispensable man whose presence at his company is essential to its preservation.

"Most of the business world wanted President Eisenhower to be elected." said Randall. But he seemed to think that "few have supported his policies. I have found more dedicated, selfless men among the bureaucrats than I know in business. I see them at their desks [ in Washington ] at 6 o'clock Saturday afternoon when the boys back home are playing the 19th hole.

"I sometimes even wonder in my inner heart whether the businessman who sabo tages the competitive system is not a greater enemy of our way of life than the Communists that he cries out against."

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