20th Century, Fifth Decade

In U.S. business, Eric Johnston, 46-year-old head of the Chamber of Commerce is already a marked man. He has turned what is normally a stodgy job into an exciting one. He has shown himself able to ingratiate himself with both labor and the Administration, longtime foes of the Chamber. He has just returned from a tour of South America (TIME, March 15), on which he endorsed the Hull reciprocal trade agreements and succeeded in selling many a South American the idea that free enterprise may be as important in Good Neighbor policy as big Government handouts.

Last week shrewd, smooth-spoken Mr. Johnston added to his stature. In an address in Manhattan entitled "The Road to Realism," Johnston summed up the fears and hopes of many a U.S. executive. Johnston's fear is that present emphasis on Federal power will lead the U.S. to totalitarianism. Said he: "Super-statism is not a bogey of the businessmen's imagination. It is the monster which has catapulted the world into war. . . . Unless we recognize it as a real danger, we shall lose by default."

But Eric Johnston saw no reason why the U.S. should lose its traditional balance between Government and free enterprise. "American business and industrial management has made its mistakes, but it has also demonstrated and is demonstrating in the war effort its great capacities. It must think in terms of the fifth decade of the 20th Century. . . . The most urgent of its responsibilities is to provide more equal opportunity for production, for employment and for economic self-improvement."

In Washington, Johnston's speech went largely unnoticed. But from the country came congratulatory telegrams (from a tobacco company in Virginia an order for 3,000 copies, reminiscent of the fantastic demand, totaling hundreds of thousands, for reprints of his Readers' Digest article of February titled "Your Stake in Capitalism"). On the West Coast, politicos predict that Johnston in 1944 may unseat Senator Homer Bone of Washington. With a reputation established for driving a middle road between business and Government, Johnston is already political material.

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