How to Create Good Will

Like every U.S. company. General Electric Co. believes that nothing helps business like being nice to big customers. But last week G.E. learned to its horror of a case where things had gone too far. In a Mann Act case in a Manhattan courtroom, three call girls testified that at least three times last year one or another of them had given her all for G.E. products. Lewis E. Rinker and John A. Murray, both officials of G.E.'s supply company in Newark, N.J., admitted they paid the girls to entertain important customers, .all in the interests of good business. Said Rinker, at the time one of the supply company's Newark promotion men: "This is public relations. It certainly creates good will."

During a three-day convention of G.E. dealers in Newark last July, said Rinker, he telephoned red-haired Nella Bogart, 32, who is on trial as the madam of a Manhattan vice ring. "I was requested by the sales manager," testified Rinker, "to ask Miss Bogart if she would come and bring a young lady with her for purposes of prostitution.'' When Nella and another girl, Pat D'Amico, 19, arrived, they registered at the hotel as mother and daughter, and got right to work. G.E.-Man Rinker picked up the tab for their suite--the customers picked up the tab for -their services. Two months later another call went out to Nella, this time for a blonde to liven up a party for local dealers. Her fee for the evening: $100 which Rinker "drew out of petty cash."

As saleswomen, said Nella Bogart's lawyer, the girls gave the company its money's worth. He told of a third occasion in which an unidentified G.E. man brought two big customers up to Nella's Manhattan apartment. "In the course of the evening," said the lawyer, "orders were written for seven carloads of G.E. appliances." Later, one of the customers canceled four of the carloads, then called up and asked Nella for a date. Snapped Nella, according to her lawyer: "You can't come to see me unless you take the order you originally took." The order was reinstated. Later, at another cosy gathering, she wound up orders for nine carloads of G.E. products.

Both Ad Manager Rinker and his boss, Sales Manager Murray, were summarily fired when the case broke. Fumed G.E.'s Garl Schlaick, general manager of the company's Hotpoint appliance sales division: "General Electric will not, now or ever, condone or tolerate such conduct." The 16 carloads? They have already been delivered and sold.*

*Total G.E. sales for 1956, as reported last week: a record $4 billion.

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