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Swope Plan. Polite friction had developed between NRA and the Department of Commerce, which felt it had not been allowed to go to bat as resolutely for Business as the Labor Department has for Labor in the New Deal. From the Department of Commerce's Business Advisory & Planning Council—60 public-spirited tycoons—was drawn the 13-man NRA Industrial Recovery Board on which sat General Electric's Gerard Swope, Standard Oil's Walter C. Teagle, General Motors' Alfred P. Sloan. These gentlemen, too, had become impatient with NRA's labor policies. Six weeks ago they were about to resign. Last week an awkward situation was gracefully avoided when Secretary of Commerce Roper announced that in accordance with a rotation system, a new board, on which Pierre Samuel du Pont, U. S. Steel's Myron C. Taylor, Reynolds Tobacco's Clay Williams and Sears, Roebuck's Robert E. Wood were the big names, would replace the Swope board. The old board prepared to retire, but not without making news. Desirous that "much of the great adventure of the NRA be made permanent," General Electric's Swope laid before the Advisory & Planning Council a plan to take the NRA out of Government hands and make it self-governing. The Swope Plan for NRA was tantamount to the national cartel system which Mr. Swope proposed two years ago (TIME, Sept. 28, 1931). Points: 1) Each trade association under a code would elect executives to supervise its affairs. With these executives would sit a minority of one or more NRA agents, or agents of the Government department taking over this work permanently. 2) "If the governing board of the codified trade association is unable to exact compliance with the code by any recalcitrant member," the board would lay its complaint before the Federal Trade Commission or Department of Justice. 3) Supervising all trade associations would be "a national chamber of commerce and industry located in Washington, which may well be an enlargement and development of the present Chamber of Commerce of the U. S." The national chamber would be composed of delegates from trade associations, from which would be chosen a board of governors. These would elect an executive committee, on which the Secretary and Assistant Secretary of Commerce would also serve. Tip-top of the whole pyramid would be a board of appeals, including representatives of the President sitting in with industrialists serving four-month shifts in Washington. Secretary of Commerce Roper did not demur when 37 members of the council resolved: "Business should remain free of Governmental interference and control. . . ."