National Affairs: Welcome Mat

Since 1948, his close alliance with U.A.W.-C.I.O. President Walter Reuther has helped G. Mennen Williams overcome the violent opposition of Michigan industrialists, win five elections for governor. But in a national presidential election,

Walter Reuther's support is much less than conclusive—and "Soapy" Williams, with his eye glued to 1960, could do with some votes from U.S. businessmen. In the current Harvard Business Review, Princetonian ('33) Williams asks an unabashed question, gives an unabashed answer. The question: "Can businessmen be Democrats?" The answer: "The door is open and business is welcome." The Democratic Party, he assures his readers, "is not anti-business ... is not a labor party . . . can in no sense be called a class party."

An heir to the soap millions of Mennen Co., Williams finds precedent for his presidential hopes in the political success of another Democrat born to wealth. Writes he: "Many younger businessmen who would like to participate actively in the Democratic Party do not do so because they are afraid to. In some areas the young man in a profession or in business is ostracized if he becomes or remains a Democrat. He is looked on as a traitor to his class. This epithet was applied to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and I have heard this foolishness applied to me."