The Press: Sylvia & You

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The overflow crowd of 1,200 at last week's meeting of Detroit's Economic Club was thoroughly and impressively big business. Throughout the jampacked ballroom in the Veterans' Memorial Building sat many of Detroit's leading bankers, stock-and-bond men and captains of industry, including a solid phalanx from the automotive world: Chrysler Chairman L. L. ("Tex") Colbert, American Motors President George Romney, Edward N. Cole, general manager of General Motors' Chevrolet Division, and scores of others. From dozens of clear Havana cigars, as from the stacks of busy factories, smoke drifted ceilingward.

Before this capacity audience of male capitalists rose the invited speaker: a pert, brown-eyed, dark-haired Manhattan matron of 47, dressed in a tailored beige wool dress, pearls and black felt hat. With a smile, Mrs. G. Sumner Collins gently corrected Detroit Free Press Publisher John S. Knight, who in introducing her had mentioned her concern for the "belly issues" of economics. Perhaps a better expression, she suggested delicately, would be "pocketbook issues." Then, with the presidential ballots still being counted in many parts of the U.S. and with the business world understandably edgy about the prospect of a change in party administration, Mrs. Collins embarked on a knowing, rapid-fire discussion of her theme: "What's Next for Business and Investment." Said she: "One of the soundest rules I try to remember when making forecasts in the field of economics —a profession which is still far more an art than a science—is that whatever is to happen is happening already." The economy is not dominated by presidential elections, but rather by a cyclical pattern. "All this has little to do with the election of John Kennedy. It would have been the same had Richard Nixon been elected. What is to happen, in short, may well be happening now, and regardless of the election, the recession should end on schedule very soon."

As she spoke, the audience listened with attentive respect. This respect had less to do with her message than with Mrs. G. Sumner Collins herself. It was the homage from businessmen who knew that this was a woman to be reckoned with in their masculine world. For Mrs. G. Sumner Collins is professionally known as Sylvia Porter, business columnist. From Chrysler's Colbert on down. Detroit's Economic Club is well aware that more car buyers, more stock market investors and more plain everyday consumers listen to Sylvia Porter than to any other economic writer in the profession.