Business: Platform Writer's Platform

Of the new breed of socially conscious U.S. executives, Charles Harting Percy, youthful (39) president of Chicago's camera making Bell & Howell Co., is perhaps the most fervent preacher of the thesis that "the responsibility of business goes beyond making products for a profit." Businessmen are also obliged, says Percy, to serve society. While running Bell & Howell, the world's biggest producer of motion-picture equipment (1958 sales: $59 million), cleft-chinned Chuck Percy has found plenty of time to serve society. He sits on the board of the University of Chicago ("I am...