ASK CANDIDATES THESE QUESTIONS 1. Do you believe Congress should resume its full legislative and deliberative powers? 2. Do you favor reducing Government control of the management of private business? 3. Will you work and vote for an early return to balanced governmental budgets? 4. Do you believe that employees should be free to join or not to join a legitimate labor organization of any sort without coercion from any source? 5. Should an individual be free to sell his own labor individually or collectively, as he and his employer may agree to their mutual satisfaction? 6. Do you believe where collective bargaining exists there should be corresponding collective responsibility for its exercise? 7. Do you believe in maintaining the Constitutional division of power between the Federal and State governments? 8. Do you favor awarding governmental contracts to the lowest re- 9. Do you believe that the powers of taxation should be used solely for 11. Do you believe that government operations should be placed on a 12. Do you believe in creating by law, through such measures as com- Signed_... Address... Candidate for.. Yes No Yes No Yes Ο Νο Yes No Yes □No Yes Yes Ο Νο ☐ Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes □No Yes No EXHIBIT 5392 [Copied from files of Mahoning Valley Industrial Council 2-4-38] DEAR MR. LLOYD: The effort which this Association has been making to depict to the American public the constructive value and achievements of industry has stressed the fact that the businessman's prime obligation is to produce goods and services for the benefit of every individual in the country. The businessman, however, is a citizen as well as a producer. He has another obligation that of contributing his time and energy to the protection of sound government. Often in the past this obligation has been overlooked. We have "left politics to the politicians." If we are to assure a sound administration of public office in this country we must abandon this attitude and accept the responsibility of personally contributing to its advancement. The enclosed pamphlet has been prepared by the National Association of Manufacturers to awaken the realization of businessmen to this fundamental need. It discusses the businessman's participation in politics quite frankly but, we believe, in a manner above criticism. If it is to have real effect, it must be widely distributed and discussed by industrialists and businessmen everywhere. You will be able to help reach this objective by distributing copies of it to your entire membership and in making it a point to discuss either this general subject or the particular booklet itself in forthcoming group meetings of businessmen in your community. Certainly your own organization can well undertake a practical discussion of how the principles and suggestions in the booklet can best be applied locally by individuals. Copies are available at the cost of printing-21⁄2¢ each-or in quantity at $2.25 per hundred. Will you not therefore arrange to secure enough of these to make an immediate distribution, and plan in addition to discuss this matter with your members at some very early date? It is not only your privilege but your duty to take an active interest in sound government. The sooner you do so, the better for you and your country. Very truly yours, /s/ WALTER B. WEISENBURGER, EXHIBIT 5393 Executive Vice President. POLITICS AND YOU, MR. BUSINESS MAN "The sentiments of our fathers, made up of patriotic intentions and sincere beliefs, entered into the government they established; and unless it is constantly supported and guarded by a sentiment as pure as theirs, our scheme of popular rule will fail. . . . I beg you to go forth and assume the obligations of American citizenship."-Grover Cleveland. "And remember, you the people of this government by the people, that while the public servant-the legislator, the executive officer, the judge -are not to be excused if they fall short of their duty, yet their doing their duty cannot avail unless you do yours."-Theodore Roosevelt. "A considerable part of those who neglect to vote do it because of a curious assumption of superiority to this elementary duty of the citizen. They presume to be rather too good, too exclusive, to soil their hands with the works of politics. "Popular government is facing one of the difficult phases of perpetual trial to which it always has and always will be subjected. It needs the support of every element of patriotism, intelligence and capacity that can be summoned."-Calvin Coolidge. POLITICS AND YOU You are a business man, not a politician. So, unless you are an exception to the rule, you are inclined to leave politics to the politicians and concentrate on your own business. Under some circumstances, that might be all right. But under the present system and conditions, that attitude makes you the victim of many professional politicians. The best defense is an attack, says the adage. That is as true in politics as in war. Politicians are not usually elected to public office nowadays because they offer sane and sound programs. They ordinarily win ballots by attacking the opposition, or by showing, perhaps only indirectly, what a rascal someone else is. Therefore, politicians constantly seek someone to criticize, to blame for mistakes and errors. They are least inclined to assail someone who will fight back. A combination of circumstances has given to many of them a ready-made target. Laws forbid business as business to take part in political campaigns and elec tions. Some business men, trying to abide by those laws, apparently felt that they forbade individual business men to be active politically. So they not only kept their business out of politics but stayed out of it themselves. The result was unfortunate. Business and business men have been built up and up as the cause of the nation's troubles; as the obstacle that keeps us from achieving Utopia. They are the straw men which many politicians use to get themselves into office. Compare the present political standing of business and business men with that of other groups. Through organization, a small minority of labor is constantly heard. Veterans are organized. Farmers are organized. Industry is beginning to see the necessity for organization. But labor, farmers, veterans, have not stopped with organization. Each individual member of those groups constitutes himself a committee of one to see that his ideas and welfare are not ignored. Some business men doubtless feel that no matter what they might have done in the past, they still would be attacked today. Is organized labor unpopular with legislators? Are veterans criticized? Are farmers attacked? In some few instances, yes. But are laws passed inimical to their welfare and desires? The business man is as much a part of the government as these other groups. The "We the people" in the Constitution includes him, too. He joined in ordaining the government and giving it certain powers. In reserving certain powers to the states and to the people themselves. To maintain this balance in government, he must protect those reserved powers. A business man must be eternally vigilant. That such vigilance is necessary is evidenced by the fact that the Van Nuys bill actually passed the Senate. This bill threatened to deprive the American business man of an essential privilege and duty-that of seeing that his employees were well-informed on public questions. Remember, too, that the House of Representatives spent only six hours on the NRA, eight hours on the AAA and sixteen hours on the new Corporation Surplus Tax act, which covered 240 printed pages. Can you afford to let that keep on happening? What can you do about it? You can, and must, exercise your rights as a citizen to defend your interests. Your rights include those of voting, discussing, understanding, and engaging in political activities. Specifically, you can do these things: 1. Be an active member of the political organization that expresses your principles. 2. Encourage good men to enter public service and support them 3. Take an active interest in the political affairs of your community. 5. Inform yourself of the nature and effect of serious public proposals, especially with respect to taxation and public expenditure. Associate yourself with your fellows in discussing such matters with your representatives, state and national. 6. Inform your employees and investors accurately and fairly what effect specific political proposals may have on the business in which they gain their livelihood. 7. Protest against the dissemination of propaganda seeking to destroy your business by public agencies which you are helping to support. 8. Make it your business to call public attention to false or incorrect statements respecting business methods. 9. VOTE in every election-national, state, county, city, village. 10. See that those with whom you are intimately associated vote, too. Even that is not enough. There are many other things you could and should do. Do you know your alderman? Your voting precinct political captains? Your state legislator? Your Congressman? Your Senators? Do you even know their names? And do you even know what voting precinct you are in? Or what legislative or congressional district? Do you know what candidates for public office intend to do if elected? Others groups and individuals-not only know all these things, but also keep in close touch with legislation. When a new law is talked of, they find out what it really means, and how it would affect them. They write to their law-making representatives, expressing their views. And they watch the subsequent votes of their legislators. They do not support any candidate who votes against them. Since business men cannot forever and eternally be leaving their businesses to tell legislatures and Congresses in person what they think of proposed laws, it is helpful to have organizations to represent them. But that is only part of the job. Even these days, law-makers heed written suggestions from their constituents. Some constituents remember that; all voters should. II. THE AMERICAN SYSTEM You should, therefore, interest yourself in politics, which means in your government. And you should be completely familiar with the ideas and ideals on which that government is based. Let us not mince words. Those who seek to undermine the American way of life have so distorted the facts that some of us-even a few business menhave come to believe that it is fundamentally wrong. Think for a moment what the American System really is. The American System is one in which goods and services are produced by private initiative with an incentive of profit for those who invest their savings. Private initiative and the incentive of profit make it different from Socialism and Communism, which advocate government ownership of the means of production and distribution. They make it different from Fascism, which is government control, domination and regimentation of production and distribution. Under the American System, the citizen is to the largest possible extent the master of his own economic destiny; under Socialism, Communism and Fascism, the government is the boss. Since the first settlers came to this country this has been a land of free men operating as free men. They cleared a continent and laid out farms. They built magnificent cities from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They built roads from Maine to Florida, from New York to California. They united this vast domain by the greatest railroad system on earth. They created new industries. They invented new devices. They turned night into day by electricity. They freed woman from the shackles of unending household toil. They reduced the hours of labor from a standard of twelve hours a day to a standard of eight. They transformed the luxuries of kings into the necessities of everyday life. Who did that? Not the government. Not a bureaucracy of officials. No supermen sitting in a national capital. Not great military chieftains. Plain men did that. Edison, Bell, Morse, McCormick, Goodyear, Westinghouse-thousands of simple but free Americans put their initiative and inventiveness and genius into the making of America. And what did they get? Not titles of nobility. Not high honors and decorations. Not uniforms and hereditary coats of arms. None of these is the American way. The American way is for them to call upon their neighbors to put their money behind the idea, to put their money into a business and to get a profit out of it. These men got their rewards in money. Yes, money. Let us not blink at the simplicity of it. They earned money to save or spend, to invest in other legitimate enterprises, to put back into the work of creating more goods and services. Is it the rich man who, under this system, receives the major benefits? Not at all. The largest number of investors in production of goods and services are ordinary folks: Farmers, small merchants, laborers, professional sin 25 ml and charitable institutions. Today 10,000,000 VAT IS II JOOČItive enterprises. And the number is steadily ged the United States is not a rich man's way of life. - THE ILLI with a surplus, no matter how small, a free how it is to be invested. - AND the Lighest wage level in the world. the farmer the best return on his crops paid anywhere, is a sad a superior scale as to be beyond the conception si che lands. mired the methods of production for both manufacturing ures that large numbers formerly engaged in these oc179 p/w engaged in service and distribution. insed production and made possible a wider distribution gym and the good things of life. perited every person in the land. not hire someone to run your business unless you knew he was You would want to have something to say about the 1x nz who might be put in charge of it. 2. no less, to inform yourself of the qualifications of those the biggest business in the country-the one in which you, your gerees have the biggest stake the government. the same interest in selecting public servants that you do in te servants, you effectively protect its institutions and your resentative government is the mirror of its citizenship. Do rfect your neglect. vernment is successfully conducted only by those who make the chicers and the shaping of its policies an important part of NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS EXHIBIT 5394 MEETING OF INDUSTRY AND LABOR CALLED BY COORDINATOR BERRY, DECEMBER 1935 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS General Offices: 11 West 42nd Street, New York City Law Department: Investment Building, Washington, D. C. To executives of associations affiliated with the National Industrial Council: OCTOBER 29, 1935. GENTLEMEN: We attach hereto for your information copy of a letter from Major George L. Berry, Coordinator for Industrial Cooperation, which letter, we are advised, has been sent to the secretaries of several thousand local This letter speaks for itself and shows clearly the direction in which the proposed conferences to be held in the near future, are tending. trade unions. Yours very truly, LAW DEPARTMENT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS. |