BIG BUSINESS AND THE GOVERNMENT
BIG BUSINESS AND THE GOVERNMENT r|URING the Coolidge-Mellon and the Hoover-Mellon admin-istrative regimes, a close and ever growing relationship has been carried on between Big Business on one hand...
...As long as na-nal administrations are dominated by the Big Business )wd, government for the'J'Big Business crowd can be expected...
...With the national administrations anxious <1 willing to cary out the wishes of the big monopoly interests, ¦ to the point of coming to the rescue of the stock market time it sags a little bit, there doesn't seem much hope that' lef concern of our national government will ever again be ilfare and happiness of the common man...
...These wily Bethlehem officials and directors in trying to justify themselves now that, the facts brought, out by the suit over their corporation's proposed merger with the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company have been made public, fail to mention that the stockholders of the corporation have changed greatly since 1918...
...The public deserves to know the facts about such things, and it is unfortunate that there are not ways and means of digging out the truth concerning other big corporate entities, that have virtual monopoj lies in their fields...
...The Great Engineer immediately rec-nized his lord and master in Big Business, and the stock ex-mge speculators began to talk of a "Hoover market...
...And since 1911 to the present time the ";cutives of this company have taken out of earnings the of S."" Pinno.' i th tockholdc-rs back in 191.8 voted the board ¦¦¦dmiiii tcr a bonus .system as they saw tlicr to the present small stockholders worker:-, employed by the corporation "pt down to a minimum, or to thp gen-iblii, thai mu.-t pay the prices demanded by the steel The fact remains that these bonuses were paid all these years in secret, and unbeknown to the small stockholders and employes who were inveigled into putting their savings into stock issues of the company...
...HUSFASM...
...Since that time, many of the big holders of Bethlehem stock have unloaded on small investors, and employe stock selling schemes have resulted in the wide distribution of the...
...Grace, president of the Bethlehem Corporation, last year...
...There was the "Coolidge market/' which began modestly and -was periodically bolstered up by cheery statements issued by President Coolidge at the behest of Andrew Mellon, until Big Business was basking under a sun of "presidential prosperity" and stock market speculators had cleaned up hundreds of millions...
...Mellon announced that he saw nothing that s '-'either menacing or warrants pessimism" and that he had very confidence that there will be a revival of activity in the spring...
...Its development, seen in perspective over the last and so-called "do-nothing" decade, is indeed startling...
...THE STARS OF BETHLEHEM FOLLOWING the recent public disclosures of the practice of head officers and insiders of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation in awarding themselves millions of dollars in so-called nuses»every year, comes the statement from these same in-''<¦"¦?¦ that there can be no criticism of their action because way 1 1918, at the recommendation of Charles M. Schwab, the olde.rs of the corporation voted to empower the...
...Then, in the last days of October, ne "the stock market crash that began the present depres-n...
...BIG BUSINESS AND THE GOVERNMENT r|URING the Coolidge-Mellon and the Hoover-Mellon admin-istrative regimes, a close and ever growing relationship has been carried on between Big Business on one hand and the national government on the other...
...Adams, was reported to have made over $300,000,000 holdings in two stocks alone...
...Adams in this article points out how these two national administrations, under the direction of Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon, have been prompt to rush to the aid of the stock market when thnigs looked bad and issue reassuring statements that were calculated to bring joy to the stock market gamblers who w,ere "bullish" and blues to the "bears...
...Then, perhaps not realizing that his service to the Big Busies interests and to the stock gamblers as the marionette of 'ilon had placed the country on the brink of economic disaster, lvin Coolidge chose not to run and bequeated the presidential f to Herbert Hoover...
...Hoover', in a speech last May 2, said that we have been passing through an economic storm and that we had ''passed the worst and with continued unity of effort we shall rapidly recover...
...THIS whole affair is illustrative of what those in control of a great corporation enterprise can do in the way of hiding profits, of appropriating for a privileged few insiders the funds that rightfully belong to the stockholders, many of whom are small investors and employes, and by such operations keep the wages of their employes down toward the subsistence level while at the same time making the public carry an unjustified burden by charging high prices for their product...
...Among other things, Mr...
...Is Statesmanship," as Mr...
...On the first of 1, January Mr...
...Schwab's statements at that time praising the system and teUing how it has brought enthusiasm and support to the officers of the corporation...
...board of ¦!i-s with full authority to award bonuses as it saw fit...
...And now, every so often, comes emanating >m the White House more cheery statements...
...roughou£-the early .months of the Hoover-Mellon regime they r it, with stocks continuing rise to new inflated heights, with, wever, violent fluctuations...
...stock among many small investors...
...Thus did the nation reap the fruit of "presidential prosper-" brought on by the Big Business dominated regimes of Cool-re and Hoover...
...What big corporation executive souldn't get enthusiastic over the prospect of receiving Jian $1,600,000 as a bonus over and above a "nominal" of $12,000, as did Mr...
...Further stock market declines followed, and industry wed up and in some cases stopped altogether: Unemployment "1 failures became common throughout the country...
...THE Old Guard crowd that used to shout, "Less government in business and more business in government" have had their way, provided that second "business" is interpreted to ¦'"•an Big Business...
...And so it goes...
...More and more has the control of the national government come to be an important consideration to Big Business, and more and more has the welfare of Big Business come to be a guiding consideration of those in charge of the government...
...These present holders of Bethlehem stock had no knowledge that millions of dollars of their money were being paid out every year to a favored group of insiders, nor had they given their consent to this practice...
...The Mellon family alone, save Mr...
...with this assertion, these big officials send some quota-rom Mr...
...of $3,500,000...
...Adams aptly asks, "to become /'.oily subordinate to big business...
...No wonder the general officers of rporation were enthusiastic over their aggregate bonus...
...IN the current issue of Harpers magazine, James Truslow Adams, a fo2-rner American business man now famous as the author of "The Adams Family," has written a highly revealing dissertation upon the attempt of the federal government to control the economic welfare and life of the nation by eating and sleeping with the big money barons, "the great business heads," the captains of industry, and the stock market manipulators...
...On May 28th he made the statement that business would be "normal befall...
Vol. 1 • August 1930 • No. 37
