GOVERNMENT: An SEC for Politicians

Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snyder should have known better. At the Financial World’s, Annual Report Awards Banquet in Manhattan last week, he blithely asked the assembled businessmen for “constructive criticisms.”

In his audience was outspoken Robert R. Young, there to receive an “Oscar of industry” for the 1945 report of his Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Co. As Young rose to accept the award, he also accepted Snyder’s invitation. When his speech (and the banquet) ended some four minutes later, a red-faced Mr. Snyder got up at once and angrily walked out.

Said Young: “Wall Street, under the Truth in Securities Act, is quite different from the old Wall Street. Business, having found that it pays to be honest, might well insist that Pennsylvania Avenue follow its example.

“What we need today is a Truth in Politics Act to match the Truth in Securities Act, clause for clause.”

Some Young points for such an Act:

“If my annual reports and proxies were filled with broken promises and half truths, the Truth in Securities Act would have got me if the Common Law had not.

“The sources of income of every public servant would make as interesting reading as do those of officers and directors.

“Is it any less a crime for a Public Bureau or Commission to divert the substance of Peter to buy the vote of Paul than it is for some Kreuger to convert the assets of a publicly held corporation to personal use?

“To pretend to seek price stability while quietly encouraging wage increases is, to say the least, not being frank. . . .

“A Truth in Politics Act to [penalize] such abuses would give us better government just as certainly as the Securities Act has given us better business.”