Annual Surprise

Upbeat or offbeat?

The corporate annual report may not be an art form that generally inspires much beyond a nod, a wink and a yawn. But when Manufacturers Hanover Corp., the fourth largest financial services organization in the nation, issued its 1981 annual report two weeks ago, the document contained a surprising dividend. Preceding the usual page after page of income and balance-sheet statistics was a sprawling, sunnily optimistic tour d'horizon of America itself, and the author was none other than Magazine Journalist and Novelist E.J. Kahn Jr., 65, a highly regarded staff writer at The New Yorker since 1937. The project, for which Kahn was commissioned by Manufacturers Hanover Chairman John F. McGillicuddy, and paid $10,000 plus expenses by the bank, is certain to elicit considerable skepticism in some quarters. But Kahn's commentary is also likely to become required reading for any businessman or banker hungry for a more upbeat view of the world about him.

For eleven days last December, Kahn hit the road on a five-city swing that took him from the economically depressed Northwest to the booming Sunbelt. Said he of the assignment: "I hoped to find something to make me feel better. I was pretty depressed about the state of this country."

What Kahn brought back in his notebook was either outright wish fulfillment or a portrait of a whole other America, featuring people far more buoyant and bullish than would seem possible in the midst of a deepening recession. In Pittsburgh Kahn found unemployment, to be sure, but also a labor force with half again as many white-collar workers as blue, an economic fact of life that has helped to cushion the deepening industry-wide slump in steel orders. In Houston (". . . the only place on earth where I have heard 'trillion' used in casual conversation ...") he learned that there are more branches of foreign banks than in any other U.S. city except New York. In Fresno, Calif., he found a county as agriculturally productive as many entire countries ("... 5,500 tons of figs, 40,000 tons of black olives, 175,000 tons of peaches..."). Not surprisingly, in Kahn's 3,500-word essay, the last word is "Wow!"

Such breathlessly gee-whiz reportage will inevitably strike many people as decidedly off-key in a time of economic uncertainty and strife. A poll conducted for TIME by Yankelovich, Skelly and White Inc. reported in December that among other disappointments, Americans by and large feel worse off today than they did a year ago. Nor will Kahn's profile win awards for methodology. Not one of the dozen or so "typical" Americans was quoted, say, while shuffling along an unemployment line. And some readers may quarrel with the Panglossian assessment of the California raisin farmer who beams: "We're bound to end up way ahead of where we were before."

If nothing else, the account undoubtedly reflects Manufacturers Hanover's own happy circumstances. With more than 700 offices in 32 states, the bank's net income in 1981 rose 10.3% over 1980 levels, and total loans jumped 23.1%. Such financial clout gives the bank plenty of muscle to continue Chairman McGillicuddy's drive to expand overseas operations while remaining a dominant domestic force in traditional banking services as well as leasing, mortgage banking, factoring and consumer finance. Whether Kahn's contribution amounts to public relations puffery or not, many businessmen will doubtless be charmed by an "other America" that smiles through economic adversity. But apparently it took a novelist like Kahn to ferret out the facts.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.