Yankee Renaissance

No area of the U.S. has been plagued with more economic ills than New England. In 30 years, while the nation's total of manufacturing jobs jumped 46%, New England's dropped 6%. After World War II, New England's aches & pains intensified as its textile mills, long the backbone of the area, continued moving South to cash in on lower costs and cheaper labor. But last week there were signs of an industrial rebirth. Biggest reason for the change: development of new industries based on research.

18-c- an Hour. No man is more interested in New England's industrial renaissance--or has had more to do with it--than Laurence Frederick Whittemore, 58, installed last week as president of the New England Council, a sort of super-Chamber of Commerce for the region. Long a New England booster, Whittemore started as an shop worker for the Boston & Maine Railroad, worked up to assistant to the president, and for a year was president of the New York, New Haven & Hartford under irascible old Frederic C. Dumaine.

As president of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank in 1946, Whittemore put the bank's resources to work for the whole New England area, made headlines with his radical views on the shift of industry to the South: the stronger the South became, he said, the more products it could buy in New England. Now president of the Brown Co., a big New Hampshire papermaker, Whittemore is showing the way New England industry can strengthen itself. In the past three years, he has poured $12 million into plant improvement and research. Says Whittemore: "I am one of those who think these are the great days of New England."

Tombstones & Capacitators. There are many who agree, and they can point to plenty of evidence that they are right. From Connecticut to Maine, hundreds of small new factories are now turning out products that were mere dreams a few years ago. Around Boston, a cluster of companies spew forth such electronic gadgets as diodes and transistors, computers and magnetron tubes. In Cambridge, Mass., along "Research Row" on the Charles River, scientists from M.I.T., Harvard and numerous companies bend over their gurgling test tubes, devising new products and methods for plastics, electronics and other industries. In Cohasset, Mass., a small seashore town, D. S. Kennedy Co. turns out giant radar antennas; in Barre, Vt., even the Rock of Ages Corp., tombstone maker, is making capacitators for use in radio and television sets.

Other examples of New England's comeback:

P:Nashua, N.H., which has lost 4,000 jobs since Textron decided to close its mills in 1948, has lured 26 new companies to the area in recent years and now has little unemployment. When Henry Kaiser starts electronics production there next month in an old Textron plant, more than 1,000 additional jobs will open up.

P:Lawrence, Mass., with 12,000 unemployed because of textile shutdowns, has raised $150,000 to lure new industries; one property where 1,200 were once employed in textiles is now manned by 4,000 in chemicals, electronics and other industries.

"Eat It Up, Wear It Out." New England still has a way to go, however, and most businessmen think that it can do more in the way of bolstering its textile industry. Last week an economic committee, appointed a year ago at the suggestion of Whittemore and others in the New England Council, and headed by Harvard's Professor Seymour Harris, made its report to the Conference of New England Governors. "New England virtues are good virtues," it said. "So were the virtues of the dinosaur . . . 'Eat it up, wear it out, make it do, go without': these are the classic virtues of New England. New England management in the '20s and '30s tended to eat up its profits, to wear out its equipment, to make its buildings do . . . There are definite signs that it has learned better."

It is true, said the committee, that New England has lost grievously in the shoe and textile fields--industries which suffered a nationwide drop in jobs. But in growth industries where employment has risen, New England has about kept up with the rest of the U.S. This, said the report, was "not a bad record."

Laurence Whittemore has a Yankee prescription to make New England's record even better: "The antidote for worry is work."

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