(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
(A very good hardcover copy. Light rubbing and edge wear. ...)
A very good hardcover copy. Light rubbing and edge wear. Tight binding. Clean, unmarked pages. NOT ex-library. 220pg. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilogram. Category: Political Science; Inventory No: 003098.
Eric Allen Johnston was an American businessman. He was also president of the United States Chamber of Commerce.
Background
Eric Johnston was born on December 21, 1896, in Washington, District Of Columbia, United States, the son of Bertram Allen Johnston, a pharmacist, and of Ida Fazio Ballinger. Because of his father's failing health, the family moved first to Marysville, Montana, then to Spokane, Washington. Shortly after the move his father died. Young Johnston, raised in what he called "genteel poverty, " sold newspapers and did other part-time work.
Education
Eric graduated from Port North Central High School in Spokane in 1913. With encouragement from an uncle, he studied law at the University of Washington, earning an LL. B. After graduation he attended officers' candidate school, and was commissioned a marine second lieutenant in 1917.
Career
Johnston might have remained in the Marine Corps had he not sustained a head injury while serving as an assistant naval attaché at Peking, China, in 1921. He received an honorable discharge in 1922 and returned to Spokane, where he sold vacuum cleaners door to door.
In 1923 Johnston and a friend bought an electrical manufacturing and wholesale concern, renaming it the Brown-Johnston Company. A decade later the company had split into the Columbia Electrical and Manufacturing Company and the Brown-Johnston Company, respectively the largest electrical contracting company and the largest electrical manufacturer in the Northwest. Johnston was president of both firms.
Johnston managed to rise to a position of power in the U. S. Chamber of Commerce in the 1930's and 1940's. He was elected president of the Spokane chapter in 1931, became a national director in 1934 and vice-president in 1941, and was elected president in 1942 - the youngest person to hold that office. Johnston was reelected to the Chamber of Commerce presidency each year thereafter, until he stepped down in 1946. His presidential candidacy was originally supported by a liberal faction in the typically conservative Chamber of Commerce.
Shortly after his election as Chamber of Commerce president, Johnston met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and then arranged for a White House gathering of American Federation of Labor, Congress of Industrial Organizations, and National Association of Manufacturers representatives, which worked out a no-strike pledge of unity during World War II. Although Johnston lost his only campaign for political office when he ran as Republican candidate for the U. S. Senate in 1940, he served in various capacities in the Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower administrations. He was chairman of the U. S. Commission on Inter-American Development in 1943 and a member of the advisory committee of the Economic Cooperation Administration in 1948. In 1955 President Dwight Eisenhower sent him on a diplomatic mission to the Middle East.
In 1945 Johnston became president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a self-regulating, policy-making body of the industry that had as members almost all the Hollywood studio heads. In this post he worked particularly hard at encouraging the distribution of American films abroad. In line with his belief in international economic development through capitalist enterprise, he believed that the export of American films "helps us create a market for American goods and it conveys American ideas and ideals. " As president of the MPAA during a period when domestic movie attendance dropped by more than half, Johnston sought to expand the international market for American films and to discourage other countries from imposing import quotas on them.
One of the biggest crises Johnston faced as head of the MPAA came during the 1947 House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigation of Communist influence in Hollywood. In the beginning he told the press that the producers had no desire to "defend or shield" members of the Communist party. After the first of the "Hollywood Ten, " the screenwriter John Howard Lawson, testified, Johnston told HUAC that he welcomed the committee's attempt to expose Communists. The "Waldorf Statement, " drafted in New York City by members of the MPAA in the face of political and economic pressure, and read by Johnston in November 1947, paved the way for the blacklisting of film industry employees who refused to cooperate with HUAC. The blacklist lasted throughout the 1950's and into the 1960's.
In his professional activities, his numerous speeches and articles, and his two books - America Unlimited (1944) and We're All in It (1948) - Johnston revealed himself to be an ebullient and cogent spokesman for the American consensus of the 1940's and 1950's. He died in Washington in 1963.
(A very good hardcover copy. Light rubbing and edge wear. ...)
Views
Ideologically, Johnston was a centrist who stoutly defended capitalism but also urged management and labor to work together. His own companies had a profit-sharing plan whereby one-quarter of the profits were distributed to employees. He was also firmly convinced that America was strong because "our economy is sparked by competition and we thrive on expanding markets. " From these principles stemmed his belief in cooperation between labor and management; his desire to expand America's role in the export of movies, technology, and scientific know-how; and his postwar anti-Communism.
Personality
Tall, handsome, energetic, and genial, Johnston was known as an excellent orator.
Connections
Johnston married Ina Harriet Hughes on October 22, 1922. They had two daughters.