“COMMON SENSE and Big Business” is the title of an article by Eric A. Johnston, president of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, appearing in the current issue of Nation’s Business. Typical of Johnston’s logical and fair-minded reasoning, it offers a slant regarding our free enterprise system which every businessman should consider. Personal initiative, the basis of free enterprise, needs the wholehearted encouragement of everyone who, believes in our American way. Leadership like that of Eric Johnston s deserves the best support that every real American can muster.
A recent newspaper editorial entitled “Fortune Smiles on the Junkman” discussed the sale of war surpluses to dealers. Criticism was not directed to the civilians who participated in these transactions, but to the government agencies which have been seemingly lax in the disposition of such materiel. We are inclined to absolve the government officials who have sanctioned these sales. We feel that they acted in good faith but lacked the knowledge and experience to “market” what might appear to be so much “junk” or obsolete equipment. Pressure of the constantly changing war program makes the immediate disposal of some of this equipment imperative. The confusion regarding surplus materiel is brought about mainly by the regulations, red tape and directives covering the disposition of government property. If some of our Congressmen would quit shouting about “criminal waste and neglect of duty” and make a clean sweep of many of the traditional knots with which every government agency must contend, the surplus problem could be ironed out in short order. It is still difficult for us to conceive why it is necessary to have a government document “rubber-stamped” by forty-odd brass-hats. Our stand has always been to call in the people who know how to get the most out of surplus materiel and machinery and let them handle these matters. They can get Uncle Sam the most out of these Recovery Dollars.
