MANAGEMENT: The Glacier Moves

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The 3,400 members of the National Association of Manufacturers who trooped into Manhattan's swank Waldorf-Astoria Hotel last week were in high spirits. With lowered taxes and an upcoming boom for their products, this seemed like the best possible year for their Golden Anniversary Congress of American Industry. As sauce for this feast of good fellowship and confidence, N.A.M. invited some critical outsiders to tell it what they thought was wrong with it.

A large spoonful of chili was dumped on their plates by brash, young (26) ex-Sergeant Marion Hargrove, author of the best-selling See Here, Private Hargrove. In a speech aptly called "See Here, Private Enterprise," Hargrove talked up to the N.A.M. like a Dutch nephew telling off his stick-in-the-mud uncles.

Said he: "I find it difficult to speak to you . . . since I've never been able to figure out your purpose as an organization. ... I can't remember a single thing you've been for [or] a single con tribution the organization itself has made or a single constructive thing it's done. . . . The N.A.M. has such a bad name . . . that even when it's right about some thing it can't draw public support to it. Even when a man gets mad at the unions he doesn't side with N.A.M.

"N.A.M., to the average thinking person, I would say, means something stubborn and reactionary and obstructionist. Even when it's right, it always seems to be right for the wrong reason. In an argument . . . the opposition [to N.A.M] uses facts and logic even if it's bad logic, and your N.A.M. spokesman gets up and begins to talk about Bolshevism, the American Way, and the evil forces that are out to ruin the country; and all that old-style . . . hogwash goes out with the imprint of the N.A.M. and the apparent sanction of American industry.

"It seems to me that you have very definite and very great responsibilities and you refuse to meet them."

When Hargrove finished, everybody swallowed and forced a polite smile. One gallant NAMster patted Hargrove on the head and said: "Don't-take it too seriously. This kid's all right. He's a good boy."

The New Plan. By contrast, OPAdministrator Chester Bowles's whacking of N.A.M. for its drive to end price controls by Feb. 15 seemed almost a caress. The U.S., said Bowles, had saved $66 billion by not modifying the Price Control Act, as N.A.M. had suggested 18 months ago. N.A.M.'s demand that controls be lifted now, when inflation pressure is at its greatest, "is a risky, reckless, gambling policy which in all likelihood would produce a national disaster."

Of all the outsiders, Politico Harold E. Stassen, Republican ex-Governor of Minnesota, gave the N.A.M. most to chew on. Candidly admitting that he has often disagreed with N.A.M., he fully agreed with its championing of free enterprise, suggested a ten-year plan to make it work better (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).