Sylvia Porter: America's Original Personal Finance Columnist

4. Presidential Adviser

119 4 Presidential Adviser Despit e Port er ’s vest ed in t er est in economic policy—and her role in designing and promoting U.S. savings bonds—she had steadfastly maintained her independence as a journalist. She believed she could remain objective even as she advised Treasury secretaries and cultivated sources on Wall Street, but she worried her readers would perceive her as biased if she appeared too cozy with the government or banks. Cultural power had been conferred upon her by the masses, not the elites, and average Americans had to know she was on their side. She also worried that if she ever took a hiatus from her column, the fickle public would quickly shift its allegiance to another economics writer. A shrewd businesswoman , Porter understood the importance of brand loyalty, and she would not risk tarnishing her image or giving readers a reason to shop for another informant. To a publisher who had asked about her involvement in anti-inflation efforts during the 1970s, she replied: “I am going to do my darndest to help, but of course there is the matter of priorities, and the column, as everybody in the White House is surely aware, is Number One.”1 Porter’s role in government expanded when the White House was inhabited by Democrats, whose views on business and the economy more closely matched her own, and contracted when Republicans controlled the executive branch. She was ambivalent when called upon politically because her ambition conflicted with her pragmatism and desire for professional autonomy. In 1962 President John F. Kennedy asked her to serve on his Consumer Advisory Council, which he had created to address growing public indignation over unsafe products and unscrupulous business practices such as planned obsolescence. Porter resigned after one 120 | S Y LV I A P O R T E R meeting. She had been frustrated by the amount of time wasted on trivial matters, such as what the group’s stationery would look like.2 The group eventually got around to discussing weightier matters, but it was too late for Porter. She had already concluded the council—much like the President ’s Commission on the Status of Women, which Kennedy had established in 1961—was mostly symbolic, an attempt to control the agitation that was beginning to disturb the calm waters of America’s postwar prosperity . The groups gave Kennedy the veneer of a progressive presidency at a time when he lacked the authority to make policy changes. Porter had little interest in committee work that accomplished nothing. As government officials sought her help more frequently in the turbulent years to come, she tried to give it carefully—and on her own terms. In September 1963, White House aide Ted Sorensen sent Porter a draft of a speech President Kennedy was about to give regarding his proposal to cut taxes. Sorensen wanted to know if she would look it over. Porter, flattered by the White House’s confidence in her abilities, cleared her schedule and set to work. She wrote a draft of her own, making a few significant changes, and sent it back to the White House with a note to Sorensen. She suggested Kennedy emphasize this would be the most important legislation of the year and the most significant economic legislation in fifteen years. Reflecting the symbiosis that existed between many politicians and the press in those years, Porter asked to know in advance what night Kennedy was going to address the nation: “I would like to follow up the day after the President speaks with a column mentioning some of the important domestic economic legislation in the last 15 years and by so doing, dramatize the significance of this bill in another way. I must write my column in advance so that it reaches all the newspapers simultaneously, and thus I would like to get to work on this as soon as I have an idea of the timing.”3 Sorensen wrote back in a telegram: “Your contribution was excellent. Talk tentatively scheduled for next Wednesday evening. Reference to 15 years appeared in Tuesday’s luncheon speech and likely to be repeated. Many many thanks.”4 Kennedy spoke to the nation Wednesday, September 18, 1963, in what would be his last major address before his death. He repeated Porter’s assertion that the bill would be the most significant economic legislation P R E S I...