Dear Dr. Litchfield:1 A transoceanic trip provided me with enough leisure time to study carefully your address of May second, which I had previously read only sketchily.2 I think you said something that needed to be said, and did it splendidly.
In reading the text, it strikes me that there are two points that might have deserved passing mention. The first of these is that, while you use the word "knowledge" to imply, also, the concept of understanding, I think too many people use the word to mean only knowledge of a fact, a technique, a profession or possibly of many facts in many fields.3
Your talk does deal with one phase of understanding, particularly the understanding between the American corporation and its influence on relations between our country and others.4 But to give one example of what I am getting at, I find medical scientists constantly talking about their new knowledge that has permitted them to prolong life expectancy. Although the major portion of this accomplishment came about because of the reduction in infant mortality, the fact is that our population is including a higher and higher proportion of older people. Certainly, then, there should be some understanding of the new problems thus created--and a whole host of questions suggest themselves. Two principal ones are: "Do we consider the arbitrary ages we set for retirement to be correct, and if they are correct now, will they be so in a few years when we have even a higher percentage of people beyond the age of 65?" I rather think that it might be a good thing if we put as much research into providing greater opportunity for useful lives for older people as we do into the effort merely to prolong their days.
The second question that suggests itself is determining to what extent should we insist that every individual make provision for his own support when he is no longer active and what are the true responsibilities of the several echelons of government in this regard. It is of course easy for the vote seeker to assure every individual that he can shift such responsibilities to government. But I often wonder whether any wholesale and practically complete transfer of the responsibility to government will not have a most unfortunate effect on the pride and sturdy self-dependence of the individual. Those are values as important as any other.
In any event, I think that we should make it clear that when we talk about knowledge, we are talking also of the relationship between one problem and another and of one type of knowledge to other types.
The second point that I think might have been treated a little bit more specifically is the responsibility of the combined management-labor leader group in any corporation to the people it serves. Indeed, I am not convinced that the leaders of our very greatest individual establishments are fully aware of the influence their actions can have on the economy.
Editors, commentators, and even some students of economics talk a great deal about the responsibility of government to see that our national economy remains healthy and expanding. Of course the government has a considerable influence in this regard, particularly through its financial and fiscal policies. It obviously affects the economy by its taxation and spending habits. Yet I believe that when we consider how great is the effect upon the economy of some of the decisions made by small groups of directors and labor leaders, at the bargaining table or elsewhere, we must conclude that in some instances the effects of these decisions can defeat, in a free competitive enterprise, anything that government itself might do in a contrary direction. Consequently, I think we need to use the term "management-labor statesmanship" more than we do.
I remember one group of business leaders, representing several important industries, who stated to me that not only were they losing foreign markets that they had formerly held, but insisted that they needed higher tariffs if we were going to avoid substantial unemployment in this country. They pled as the reason for their loss of markets rising labor costs.
When I, in turn, queried them as to the reasons for granting wage rises that would throw them out of foreign markets, they said that in the domestic scene they were not able to stand a strike because they would lose their competitive position at home.
I asked them if their level of profits had anything to do with this difficulty. When I remarked that their plan of raising tariffs would cause further loss in the foreign market, they were unimpressed--in fact, they more or less preached economic isolationism. To my mind this is the kind of thing that requires what I call a bit of business statesmanship.
This letter is far from being critical of your talk. On the contrary, I was so impressed by it that it occurred to me that you might want to consider emphasizing, in the future, these two points.
While this letter is written rather hastily and, so to speak, shooting from the hip, these matters have been on my mind for a long time and I really wish I knew how to get people, in general, to think about them more intensively.
With personal regard, and again thanks for your courtesy in sending me your speech. Sincerely
P.S. As you know, my schedule for May and June has been somewhat altered by the recent events in Paris.5 If, therefore, you and Gwilym Price still want to see me, I suggest you call my appointment secretary, Mr. Stephens, who will set up a date.6
