Trainman News

US Steel Boss
Hit by Small
Plant Head

NEW YORK -- Benjamin Fairless, Big Boss of U. S. Steel, was taken over the coals before National Association of Manufacturers here recently by Telford Taylor, lawyer who heads Small Defense Plant Administration.

Declaring that many small businessmen "have their backs to the wall" as a result of materials shortages, Taylor said "it is especially unfortunate that some sadly mis-informed persons, including those who should have known much better, have interjected extreme and intemperate charges and accusations into this picture. I refer, in particular, to recent statements by Mr. Fairless, the president of the United States Steel Corporation, which received wide circulation in the press."

Fairless, in a speech at Philadelphia Nov. 12, had asserted that employment and profits of small firms had increased more rapidly than those of Big Business during the nine months after the Korean war began.

"On the basis of these statistics, Mr. Fairless jumped-and it is a record-breaking jump, both statistically and logically - to the conclusion that there is no reason to try to increase the amount of government procurement to small business," said Taylor.

Fairless' statistics, Taylor continued, are vulnerable and irrelevant. "It is scant comfort to the small manufacturer . . . who is faced with bankruptcy . . . to be told that employment in small business concerns as a whole, a year ago, was going up . . . I would hate to tell a man being forced out of business that statistics show he is prosperous. Mr. Fairless, for reasons best known to himself, has done just that."

Taylor spoke of the warnings of a tightening economic pinch for small business and urged greater use of small business in making military goods.

"There has been no lack of blunt warnings from those who know whereof they speak," said Taylor. "It is indeed surprising that Mr. Fairless has demonstrated so openly that he is not one of them."