The Stans Style

"We ought to be doing all we can to protect the American economic system, pointing out deficiencies and helping to build," says Maurice Stans, the hardworking and highly dedicated Secretary of Commerce. "I feel very strongly about it--I happen to be a beneficiary of that system."

As a onetime night school student who became a millionaire accountant, Stans has good reason for vigorously defending The System. But there is a growing doubt among corporate leaders that personable "Maury" Stans is prepared to recognize its deficiencies. And that is an equally important part of his job, especially at a time when many businessmen know that they must respond to rising public criticism. In his 21 years as the Nixon Administration's top spokesman for business, Stans has earned a reputation as an unyielding conservative on almost every issue, including several on which the President favors change.

"Wait a Minute." Stans torpedoed a Cabinet task-force report urging an end to the import quotas that keep U.S. oil prices higher than necessary. Against the recommendation of John Mitchell's Justice Department, he also managed to water down the Administration's consumer-protection bill, making it much harder than originally planned for large groups of aggrieved customers to collect damages through class-action suits. Such suits, Stans told TIME Correspondent Mark Sullivan, could result in "intolerable harassment of business." Instead, Stans advised "experimenting with local consumer courts" and the continued use of the Better Business Bureau. The Commerce Secretary prevailed over the Transportation Department's plan to back no-fault automobile insurance. He also fought against the drafting of stringent standards for product safety, but he is almost certain to lose that battle when Congress passes a final bill.

Since taking office, Stans has made a huge number of speeches, mostly to audiences of small businessmen and conservatives with whom he feels most comfortable. Two weeks ago, he addressed members of the National Petroleum Council and fired off his latest gripes in a speech titled "Wait a Minute." Among other things, he wants the nation to "wait a minute" before banning the use of DDT, forcing detergent manufacturers to remove phosphates from their products, making offshore drilling "too difficult," or closing down industries guilty of polluting if they support entire communities. He opposes tough enforcement of federal air-pollution standards, which he says were set "without regard to the economic costs."

Stans believes that his opposition to so many Administration and congressional reform measures is a part of his job: to be the businessman's hard-lobbying, cheerleading advocate in Washington. But he is not without some plans for reform of his own. In the Commerce Department, Stans started an ombudsman scheme that provides businessmen with an office where they can take complaints about the Government, and he supported the campaign against further U.S. hunting of endangered whale species. (But he recently upheld the "harvesting" of Alaskan seals by means of clubbing.)

Traditional Values. At 63, Stans seems too certain of traditional values to consider any basic change. The son of a Shakopee, Minn., house painter, he joined Chicago's Alexander Grant & Co. accounting firm as an office boy at age 20, became a partner after ten years and helped turn the organization into the nation's tenth largest accounting firm. During the late Eisenhower years he was director of the Bureau of the Budget, overseeing Washington's last set of balanced books in fiscal 1960. Then he became an investment banker until signing on as Nixon's chief fund raiser in 1968; he raised $34 million. Stans' main concession to contemporary concerns has been to give up his favorite hobby --big-game hunting--for the duration; his wife Kathleen has also forsworn her collection of leopard and cheetah coats.

The Commerce Department reached its point of greatest influence during the Hoover presidency, when Secretary Robert Lamont actively helped make U.S. economic and foreign trade policy. Since then, those functions have been largely transferred to the State Department and the Council of Economic Advisers. Under Stans' stewardship, at least part of the department's remaining business constituency has drifted away. Black businessmen, who received promises of major aid during Nixon's campaign, distrust Stans' blunt conservatism; at the N.A.A.C.P. convention last month, he was roundly jeered. Big businessmen who want to get something done in Washington bypass Stans even more frequently than they did his predecessors and deal instead with White House aides, who have more clout. Many corporate leaders, who have generally grown more liberal in recent years, feel it is unfortunate that President Nixon does not have a Commerce Secretary more in step with the needs of the time --and with their own desires.

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