Arnold Hiatt

Arnold Hiatt is an American businessman notable for having been the president of the Stride Rite footwear company. In addition, he is notable for having been a large contributor to political campaigns[1] for the Democratic Party[2] as well as being a voice calling for money to get out of politics. He has called for serious electoral reform and public financing of elections.[2][3] Hiatt has been consistently praised by Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig for his stance on electoral reform.[4]

Arnold Hiatt
Born (1928-06-01) June 1, 1928
Massachusetts, United States
NationalityAmerican
EducationHarvard College
OccupationBusinessman,
Electoral reformer
EmployerStride Rite

Stride Rite

Hiatt was the son of a Lithuanian immigrant.[5] A graduate of the Class of 1944, Arnold attended Worcester Academy for twelve months straight in order to join the U. S. Army in the Second World War. After college, he began as a shoe salesman and worked himself up the corporate ladder.[5] He joined Stride Rite in 1967 when it acquired a children's shoe company named Blue Star, when sales were $35 million a year. In 1968, Hiatt became president; by 1992, Stride Rite was earning more than $600 million.[5] Hiatt was able to anticipate changes in consumer preferences for footwear, and adapted to major changes by acquiring firms with in-demand products:[5]

Three times in a row in the last two decades there have been major changes in the consumer taste in footwear, and he's been there every time with a new acquisition.

— --Steven Nichols, a Stride Rite alumnus.[5]

Hiatt pioneered socially conscious methods such as opening a company sponsored day care center in 1971, at a time when such a move was considered "radically countercultural."[5] In 1986, smoking of cigarettes, cigars and pipes was banned from the corporation.[5] And his firm provides scholarships for 40 inner-city youth to attend Harvard University.[5]

According to The New York Times, the company has achieved a consistent return on investment to place it among the "top 1 percent of companies" listed on the New York Stock Exchange with compounded annual growth of 46 percent.[5]

Stride Rite was acquired by Payless ShoeSource in 2007.[6]

Advocacy of electoral reform

According to Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig, in 1996 Hiatt advocated to then-president Bill Clinton that the president work hard to try to end "private funding of public elections", but Hiatt was repudiated by Clinton.[7][8] In 2007, Hiatt wrote:

Clearly, the way we finance elections is undermining our democracy. The current campaign finance system forces good people to spend far too much time talking to narrow slices of our society and at the expense of focusing on the nation's business. Only the wealthiest citizens or special interests can provide the enormous amounts of money required to run for or stay in office. Even the most trusting among us must recognize the potentially corrupting incentives that this creates.

— Arnold Hiatt, writing in the Boston Globe, 2007[3]

Hiatt has urged passage of the Senate Fair Elections Now Act introduced by Senators Dick Durbin and Arlen Specter, which is a bipartisan proposal to raise a "large number of small donations to show their credibility with the public" before qualifying for public funding for their campaigns.[3]

My own special interest is to get special-interest money out of the political process. The influence of that money indirectly costs taxpayers far more than the costs of liberating the electoral process from the special-interest lobbyists.

— Arnold Hiatt, 2007[3]

References
  1. Dwight L. Morris (December 12, 1996). "The Soft Money Trail". Washington Post. Retrieved 2011-12-13. Arnold Hiatt, former chairman of Stride Rite Corporation and current chairman of the Stride Rite Foundation, wrote one check for $500,000 – the single largest individual contribution to the DNC.
  2. "Groups Launch Push for New Campaign Finance Bill". CBS News. July 8, 2010. Archived from the original on April 25, 2012. Retrieved 2011-12-13. Among those financing the effort is Arnold Hiatt, the former CEO of Stride Rite Corp. and major Democratic Party contributor who earlier this year urged other big political donors to give only to candidates who committed to support the legislation.
  3. Arnold Hiatt (editorial writer) (August 28, 2007). "May the best fund-raiser win?". Boston Globe. Retrieved 2011-12-13. Clearly, the way we finance elections is undermining our democracy. The current campaign finance system forces good people to spend far too much time talking to narrow slices of our society and at the expense of focusing on the nation's business. Only the wealthiest citizens or special interests can provide the enormous amounts of money required to run for or stay in office. Even the most trusting among us must recognize the potentially corrupting incentives that this creates.
  4. Lawrence Lessig (August 25, 2011). "The Good Soul Howard Schultz: Exploiting an Addict Rather Than Ending an Addiction". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2011-12-13. That was the objective of Arnold Hiatt (former CEO of Stride Rite) and Alan Hassenfeld (former Chairman of Hasbro, Inc.) when they launched a similar campaign just last year, by writing (PDF) to the largest campaign funders, and asking them to withhold funds from any candidate who didn't pledge to support the Fair Elections Now Act -- a bill that would give candidates the chance to opt out of special interest funding, and into a voluntary system that would limit campaign contributions to $100, with each contribution matched 4 to 1 by the government.
  5. STEPHANIE STROM (April 20, 1992). "Stride Rite Chairman To Resign". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-12-13. Arnold Hiatt, the shoe salesman who pioneered no-smoking offices and child care at the work place, is stepping down as chairman of the Stride Rite Corporation to devote himself full time to the company's philanthropic foundation.
  6. Abelson, Jenn (2007-05-23). "Payless set to acquire Stride Rite for $800 million". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-06-24.
  7. Lawrence Lessig (February 15, 2010). "The Democrats' Response to Citizens United: Not (Even Close to) Good Enough". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2011-12-13. ...And the only published account of that evening reports a President impatient with his reformer-funder. ... "The president put this guy down so unbelievably. He didn't even do it graciously. He just took Arnold and phooom, like he would some junior aide who had made a really dumb mistake."
  8. Lawrence Lessig (Nov 16, 2011). "Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It". Google, YouTube, Huffington Post. Retrieved 2011-12-13. (see 40:11 minutes into the video)
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