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About The Oregon statesman. (Salem, Or.) 1916-1980 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 13, 1956)
With But One Def eat, in Automobile (Jallori aolat A flff lurnlnf ill Bini. thiDi lhn any altw kulUrr aurmi Wurld War II, M'nry 1. Kalr( Iurnr4 ta atart--lm Inauttry ant, wllb lh ffatlna ( automobllM, ail kullt up ana at ht mail lurmtlul Inauitrlil tmplrri In Amtrlra. Nrrt'i tha tlory arhln4 ant af aur mt (akulam tnlnrtrln Sat Maaaiarlal arianlMlloni). By LE1F EKICKSON OAKLAND, Calif. (P)- Borne wasn't built Jn a day, but that may have bun because Henry J. Kaiser wasn't running the job. The boil of one A America'! peat Industrial empires admits as much. In a demonstration of the supreme faith he has in him self and in his managerial and engineering organization Kaiser once confided, to an anxious aide, fretting that his chief's promises exceeded possibility, that he might have managed to build the Iternal City quicker. He might have, at that. Like fv"V - ' JEL Henry J. Kaiser Babe Ruth and his legendary World, Series swat Into the stands, where he had brashly pointed with his bat, Kaiaer has homered In both war and peacetime Indus tries. ; . Oae ExcepUoa ' There was one exception au tomobiles. Kaiser took a mighty swing, but couldn't break into the same league with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. During World War. II he built mort ships 1,490 of them than anybody. When the Korean War started and the Air Force began building up a fleet of jet planes, Kaiser's new Chalmette, La., alu minum plant produced the des perately needed metal in 10 months, two .months earlier than promised. In another 20 months the plan's production capacity was doubled and today it is the nation's largest aluminium re duction plant, operating its own generators producing 473,000 ki lowatts of electric power from natural gas. Moreover, Kaiser Aluminum Is slated soon to atart building a new and bigger reduction plant t Ravenswood, W. Vs., which la expected to raise Kaiser's over all aluminum metal capacity to 654,000 tons annually. In 1146, at 64, Kaiser began Building up a diverse domain not only in aluminum, but in steel, eement and 'gypsum, all basic in 20th century economy. As of mid lfiSiJCaiserenterprise assets are measured at" "more than a billion dollars and annual sales volume at 043 million. .In motors Kaiser has pulled out of the brutal passenger car ales battle. He bought out Willys in Toledo and now concentrates on commercial vehicles and the laftaft Baa a I wjiai1s4 mnA aj-v-a pii ea-vt pii'Va nvi iu wiuc fymbol of American engineering effectiveness. PaMIe Aeeeptaaee "We learned that in the auto industry, more than any other, you've got to have public accept ance," Kaiser says. "And that you can't make or buy in a hurry." Production of Kaiser, jeeps, trucks and cars in Argentina, originally scheduled to itart this year, has been stalled. The deal tinder which Industrias , Kaiser Argentina was established last January has not been honored by the new Aramburu regime and Argentine assets of the com pany have been frozen. This is part of a campaign by the new government to recover what hat been called gains "ill gotten" under the ousted Peron regime. To unfreeze their assets. affected rnmninia mutt Drove that profits since 1043 were hon estly obtained. Otherwise, the wealth is to go into a govern ment fund for the development of housing and oil Industries. Kaiser, apparently hale and healthy at 73, entered a Honolulu hospital this week for a checkup. Edgar ; Kaiser said that while - there was nothing dangerous about his father'i condition, he had suf fered intermittent oain since a fall in a bathtub in December. V Even before the accident, the elder Kaiser had made clear he knows better than anyone that he can't go on forever. But he has thoroughly trained and tested a leadership team in Edgar Kaiser, his chief deputy, and Eugene E. Trefethen,- the executive vice pres ident of all Kaiser companies. They are equipped in experience - and spirit to keep the empire ; growing whenever Henry J. steps out. Latest Eathaalasm' Kaiaer now spends weeks at i time in Honolulu, personally whlnnin alonf hia latest enthus iasm Waikiki's biggest noiei ae velopment He plans an eventual group of three 900 room Deacn hotels.'. . '.."'.' ' "I don't hive much time left," Kaiser aayi. "I want to get on with this." Wherever tha boss may be, the Kaiser management organization machines out decisions and poli cies at the empire's general head quarters on Oakland! Broadway. Tha manaBmnt team headed by ion Edgar, Trefethen and en gineer - Ceorge Havas probably is the prize of all Henry J. Kaiser's creations. In the planning stage Is anew CHQ a Kaiser Center overlook ing Lake Merritt, a water park near Oakland's business heart. The site in bought for a building with 300,000 square feet of Kaiser Enterprise office space, plus a lush shopping area. Aluminum ExpanaUa Meanwhile, Kaiser's manage ment organization is engineering Iti way ahead with over 111 mil lion dollar! in aluminum expan sion, a new 12 million dollar cement plant In Southern. Cali fornia, and better than 6 million dollars In new gypsum factories at Pittsburg, Calif. And Kaiser. Steel, which has concentrated on acquiring raw materials properties in Iron ore, coal and limestone, bai a 110 million dollar production in crease' program ready for the financing go ahead. The managing team carries out what the boss believes. "We live in the industrial revo lution of the last half of the 20th Century," Kaiser says. "It trans cends anything we've known be fore.''1 ' "This age of atomic energy, aviation, electronics, new metal lurgy, chemistry and new tech nology, has jet propelled us into a chain reaction of progress." Critics of Kaiser have claimed he and his empire were made by government money., But he in-, lists he used 'the money to pro duce what the nation needed. He asserts, too, that he aaved the government far more than he borrowed by production cast cuts. Of an overall 227V4 million dollars In federal money that Kaiser borrowed, all la reoaid except! a balance of less than 13 million owed by Kaiaer Motora. By 1930 the 132 million in RFC money borrowed for waf projects and steel had been repaid, plus 28 million in interest, 23 years ahead of the last loan deadline. Private Maaey Kaiaer financing has shifted entirely to private money now. George ' Woods, board chairman of First Boston Corp., has guided Kaiser in raising 600 million in private investment money since 1946, He is called the empire's minister of finance. The main problem," Woods says of his financing perform ances for the Kaiser enterprises, "was to get these boys accepted in eastern banking and industrial circles." It's a problem long settled. Since Woods cured Kaiser ateel'i wartime financing hang over, by raising 123 million dol lars In first mortgage bonds, stock unita and bank credit, its growth, has been rapid. Kaiser steel bought and modernized coal mines at Sunny side, Utah, in 1930 and last July bought 500,- 000 acres of coal lands near Ra ton, N. M. The company has a coking coal reserve for a long future, is, Perhaps Kaiaer engineers, headed by Hungarian-born Hav as, is the special apparatus which, with the dream , generator in Kaiser's cranium, made possible tne twin growth of all the empire provinces. , Through the engineers Kaiser maintains a big stake in construc tion.- Kaiser Mglneers are iron- soring head of an American con tracting group building '36 mil lion dollars worth of dams and tunnels in Australia, for exam ple. The jobs are part of that country's billion dollar Snowy Mountains hydroelectric and ir rigation program. Meat Unique ' Most unique of all, Henry J. Kaiser's many sides is his big and controversial venture into hospi tali and group medical practice. Forty-three Kaiser hospitals and medical centers, with doctor partnership groups., now serve 300,000 subscribers to his prepay ment pian lor hospital and-doctor care, . "My -mother died in my arms when I was 16. for lack of med ical care," Kaiser says, explain ing his earnest fostering of the health plan system. "My father went blind, and that could have been prevented. I made up my mind that if I ever had the . opportunity. I would work for more medical ear for more people at lower cost." -The first Kaiser hospital start' e In the desert to serve his workers on the Colorado aque- auct. Tne worker kicked In nickel . a day from wages for medical care. - Now the basic fees for the non profit Kaiser Foundation Health Plan are $4 90 a month for an individual and up to $12 for familv group. Critics call it socialized medi cine. Doctors protest that it of. fers no free choice of a physic ian. , Dr.- Sidney J. Garfield, who started 1he "first desert hospital and now Is the clan's medical di rector, aayi, "We don't have to think of the patient's pocket book. No oner becomes a second class or charity patient. Everv- one gets the treatment he need from a staff skilled and quali fied in all fields." Pay Tbrlr Way Thelvaiser hospitals pay their way. Banka finance new ones. No gilt or fund drives are needed. The corporate organization of the Kaiser empire is tcpped by the Henry J. Kaiier Co. It holds Investment control in the produc ing companies and ahapes man agement and financial policy for all. This corporate setup would be revised under a plan, recently dis closed by tha elder Kaiser, which la to be submitted to stockholders early this year. Under the reorganization plan, the Henry J. Kaiser Co. would, through an exchange of stock, be come a wholly owned subsidiary of Kaiser Motors. Kaiser Motors would then be re named the Kaiser Industries Corp. The various subsidiaries of the vast Industrial empire would con tinue to operate within (he con solidated system. A vice president and general manager is operating head of each producing company and Is delegated a full degree of re sponsibility. These chiefs are Donald A- Rhoadrs of aluminum, Jack L. Ashby of steel, Wallace A. Marshal! of cement, Claude E. Harper of gypsum, and Steve A. Gerard of motors. 4 Home base, for all but Gerard la the Oakland CHQ. When they are In town they meet daily at lunch in the executives' dining room with Edgar, Trefethen and Henry J. Lading Ahead Looking ahead into the. next 10 years for Kaiser Enterprises, Trefethen says, "We will have a much broader base to build from than we did getting where we are. "We will have more credit, more management, more oppor tunity for new developments. Men with ideas will come to us." Now 43, Trefethen started as' Kaiser's executive assistant toon 11. S. Uracil To Maintain Grant's Tomb NKW YOItK - The federal government has been asked to take over maintenance of Grant's tomb, a sightseers' landmark ilnce m. The Grant Monument Asn,a nonprofit organization, owns title to the monument on Riverside Drive. However, maintenance funds have been provided by New York City. .The association aaid Wednesday it wai appealing for federal funds because of "constant worry" en tailed In receiving sufficient mon ey to maintain the monument. The 'organization noted, how ever, that the city "has been very decent about our requests." after coming out of Harvard's School of Buiinesi Administra tion. "We have proved we are sound people," he said. "There's no more fighting for the chance to prove it "I can tell you, there's been a lot of sweat" f (Jodfrcy Show ill. mis Audience NKW YOItK - An innova tion went into elfeet VtfdneMl.iy muht on Arthur Godfrey's Me vlMon show the program was put on without a studio audience. A spokesman for Godfrey said "we jui.t tried something new," adding that the experiment would be continued "for a couple of weeks." No reason was given for the no audience Idea, although some ob server! In TV circles speculated It was part of an effort to enhance the quality of the show. . Statesman, S. :, Ore, rri..J...:,. 13, IV.'. i (V r. I 5 1 - J New Y radioadv ik fily Is ri vd hy 12 nul .10 aiiliiir. 40 bus lines 'lines y i. r1 a- Suit Says Actress Churned Up Yard SANTA MONICA. Calif, in A neighbor couple seeks 11.500 dam ages from Wanda Hendrix. claim ing the actress ruined their yard while attempting to make turn In a station wagon. ' The suit, filed Wednesday In municipal court on behalf of Mr. and Mrs. Donald E. Dufford. stat ed the incident occurred Dec. 1. The actress is the wife of socialite James Stack. I 4 For skirts, suits and coolings. 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