ALL-AMERICAN
Away back when names like Fielding Yost, Alonzo Stagg, Walter Eckersall and Tom Hammond were as synonymous with football as Sammy Baugh, Charley Trippi, Marshall Goldberg and Johnny Lujack are today, we spent many a fall Saturday trying to crash the gate at the old University of Chicago football field.
We didn’t dream that one of those heroes of our youth would one day become a leading industrialist. But today the same Tom Hammond we watched play football is General Thomas S. Hammond, business man, civic leader, soldier, and last but not least, an inspiration to every American.
In line with our editorial policy of publishing articles about leading American businessmen and their firms, we have written a story this month about Tom Hammond, a man who in our estimation is All-American in every respect. He may have scored a lot of touchdowns for Michigan, but he has scored even more often in his business career—he should be called “Automatic Hammond” in this respect!
For example, when he took command at Whiting Corporation, he inaugurated an All-American employee-employer relationship plan that has become a model for industry. For over a decade Whiting’s plan has been a bulwark against unscrupulous outside interference. The esprit de corps resulting from the program is especially notable in that it filters into the employee’s very home life. The whole family feels it is a part of Whiting.
On page 42 of this issue of SURPLUS RECORD you will find a brief story about how the Whiting Corporation industrial relations program ticks. Town Hall meetings described in the story were inaugurated by an All-American and have continued to be truly All-American in every respect. They are a vital part of the kind of Industrial Relations that is the antidote for communism, collectivism, paternalism, socialism, and all the other isms which are anti-American.
We would like to see ten thousand industrial leaders like General Thomas S. Hammond, All-American.
